Management Today articles from December 2005

Management Today archives from December 2005

Editorial: Not Everyone loves a winner.(Editorial)
December 2, 2005... In Groundhog Day-style, Tesco and its boss Leahy have swept the board again. So here we are again with the leaves on the ground and a snap in the air. The turn of another year and, in Groundhog Day-style, Tesco has swept the board again in...

Contributors.
December 2, 2005... RICK WAGONER General Motors' chairman and chief executive has to defend the world's largest vehicle manufacturer against cut-throat competition and a crippling healthcare burden. His best and worst decisions for Brainfood encompass battles...

Chartered Management Institute: In my opinion.(Column)
December 2, 2005... Chartered Management Institute Companion Sandra Macleod, CEO of Echo Research, believes listening is essential for new leaders. There is a well-known quip about a local who, when asked for directions by a stranger, answers: 'If I were you,...

The MT Diary: My life on the Anglo-French see-saw; bad blood, new blood at the FT; Moreno's choice.(Glen Moreno, Financial Times)
December 2, 2005... If things go on like this, we'll have to start feeling sorry for the French. Some of us will find that hard, but if it has to be done... Just over 30 years ago, Her Majesty sent me to Paris as a cub diplomat. I was supposed to run the...

Brainfood: Ten Ways to... Keep Your Boss Happy.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... Anticipate what they need, and deliver it Look to be independent Understand their pressures Bring them solutions, not problems Bring in new contacts Impress people they know Volunteer for everything Be available, but don't get in...

Brainfood: How does he manage? - Radio Editor, Kevin Marsh, The Today Programme, BBC Radio 4.(Brief Article)(Interview)
December 2, 2005... When did you become a manager? I was deputy editor of the BBC's World at One in the Birt years - managing teams, getting them to be cohesive and produce the programmes. There was no training at the BBC then; you were just told 'take these...

Brainfood: Earning Curve - Letting Your Hair Down.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
December 2, 2005... Bernard Arnault, CEO, LVMH (Dom Perignon maker), worth pounds 12bn Philip Green's bill for his son's bar mitzvah pounds 4m Beatles tribute band, per booking pounds 1,200-pounds 3,000 Stripogram, Christmas party season, per night pounds...

Brainfood: Workplace Rights - The Party Line.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... Office parties are a minefield for employers. Booze flows, inhibitions are shed, and before you know it, people are photocopying their bottoms and you're landed with a sexual harassment claim from Norman in accounts. A makeover of the Sex...

Brainfood: History Lessons - Mismatched Mergers - Steve Case.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... As co-founder and CEO of America Online, Steve Case was one of the architects of the firm's astounding dollars 166 billion merger with media behemoth Time Warner in 2000. But this 'clicks-and-mortar' deal was a marriage made in hell. The two...

Brainfood: Your Route to the Top - Coping with overload.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... Focus. Successful people are rarely frantic, and frantic people are rarely successful. Take a close look at your schedule and clear out the clutter. Make your time your own. Is your diary driving you? Take control and be as careful with...

Brainfood: Speaking Out - Mikhail Gorbachev, Last President of the Soviet Union, Nobel Laureate.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... I now know why Russians appear glum - they have to sit through endless speeches by their leaders. Addressing business delegates at the Leaders in London conference, Mikhail Gorbachev made us feel like members of the Soviet praesidium settling...

Brainfood: Business Manners - Handling the Media.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... Buy some time. Don't answer questions on the spot. Find out what the journalist wants, then get back to them. Preparation will make you a more eloquent subject, and you'll be less likely to emit a Prince Philip-ism. Take control. You don't...

Brainfood: Slogan Doctor British Gas - Doing the right thing.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... British Gas has had a number of slogans, some of them - 'Don't you just love being in control' - quite memorable. 'Doing the right thing' was, the firm insists, generated by its own staff, who clearly have no problems with self-esteem. But it...

Brainfood: John Windeler - If I had to start again..(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... If I wasn't involved in business, I'd like to have worked in education, as a teacher or administrator, helping to improve the education system. I feel very strongly about the power of education to solve political and social problems. It's...

Brainfood: We'd love that job - Winter Holiday Designer, Mike James, Exodus.(Brief Article)(Interview)
December 2, 2005... What do you do? I research and design adventure holidays for our winter brochure. That means meeting and negotiating with local suppliers in Scandinavia and even the Arctic Circle, and trying everything - from dog-sledding and...

Brainfood: Remember this.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... 'Money doesn't make you happy. I have dollars 50 million, but I was just as happy when I had dollars 48 million' ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER SAID IT 'The buck stops with the guy who signs the cheques' RUPERT MURDOCH SAID IT.

Brainfood: Are You Suffering From - Malorganisation.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... Malorganisation is common in companies that suffer from 'collective stupidity', as Karl Albrecht neatly puts it. You know the scenario: Department A fails to tell Department B (based in another building) of a very important development, but as...

Brainfood: Words-Worth - Driving.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... These days, a manager has to be able to drive. Not steer a motor vehicle - that's taken as read - but 'drive sales', 'drive change' and 'drive innovation'. You have to make things happen. In this sense, 'driving' is essentially about doing...

Brainfood: How She Made Her Pile - Oprah Winfrey, American TV Personality and Media Businesswoman.(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... Who is she? She's the godmother of American chat shows and was America's first black female billionaire. How did she make her millions? Originally a news anchor, Winfrey began hosting AM Chicago in the early '80s, and made it her own....

Brainfood: Stat of the Month - Internet Penetration.(Malta)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... 78.3 Proportion of the Maltese population with internet access. How do you make a Maltese cross? Steal her modem. Bad joke, but it's probably true - the Mediterranean island has the world's highest level of internet penetration. The US...

Brainfood: Crash Course in... Making it in the states.(market research)
December 2, 2005... You've outgrown the domestic market, you are ready to conquer new horizons and fancy having a crack at Uncle Sam. How do you set about getting into the US market? Think twice. 'If you don't already have overseas market experience, the US...

Brainfood: MT Masterclass.(Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... CHAPTER 11 What is it? Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code allows a company in severe difficulties to reorganise and restructure, leaving existing management in place instead of being removed by its creditors. It is very different from...

Brainfood: Decisions - Rick Wagoner, General Motors.(market share)(Brief Article)
December 2, 2005... CEO OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST VEHICLE MANUFACTURER MY BEST... Some of our competitors made bets that didn't work so well - Toyota had 2% market share then and it has 2% now - but it has worked for us. We've grown from less than 1% to 12%....

Brainfood: Behind The Spin.(H.J. Heinz Company Ltd.)
December 2, 2005... THE DILEMMA To the British, Heinz is best known for tomato ketchup and baked beans. Last year, it had nearly 78% market share in ketchup and just over 46% in canned baked beans. Yet the Pittsburgh-based company has found that in the...

Just a shot of ethicality.(Nestle S.A.)
December 2, 2005... Nestle has caused confusion among right-on activists with its new fair-trade coffee. Words are just like people: as one dies, another is born. Newborn words are also as ugly as newborn babies (to all except their creators, of course). Soon...

The undoing of Brown.(Gordon Brown)
December 2, 2005... The Chancellor's chances of succeeding Tony Blair are looking less day by day. The odds are lengthening on Gordon Brown making it to Number 10, despite Tony Blair's recent difficulties. The problem for the ambitious Chancellor is that the...

Techno life Christmas Special: Give or get a gizmo.(Buyers Guide)
December 2, 2005... Last year's must-have Christmas present was the iPod mini, but now the discerning technophile has more to choose from. There are four new iPods, a crowd of music-playing rivals, Sony's PlayStation Portable, a slew of new digital cameras, and...

Books: Real evils of counterfeiting.(Knockoff: The Deadly Trade in Counterfeit Goods )(Book Review)
December 2, 2005... This book explodes the myth that piracy and faking are a fair antidote to corporate profit-making, arguing for cross-border action to protect IP. Eric Nicoli is impressed. Anyone who still believes that piracy and counterfeiting are...

Books: Three of a Kind - Boost your Powers of Persuasion.(Persuasion: The Art of Influencing People, The Five Paths to Persuasion, Life's a Game so fix the odds)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 2, 2005... Persuasion: The Art of Influencing People James Borg Prentice Hall pounds 9.99 Best of its kind The Five Paths to Persuasion Robert B Miller, Gary A Williams with Alden M Hayashi Kogan Page pounds 14.99 Best of its kind...

Books: What happens when the dollar collapses?(Wake Up!)(Book Review)
December 2, 2005... This book's Doomsday scenario may be overwrought, but it should alert us to real economic dangers, says Anthony Hilton. In the depths of the Cold War in the 1960s, the fashion was for books and films on how to survive a nuclear attack....

Britain's Most Admired Companies: Another Twin win for Tesco.
December 2, 2005... MT's annual peer review poll this year puts the mighty supermarket chain and its boss at the top of Britain's Most Admired Companies and Most Admired Leader awards. It's a repeat of the double they achieved two years ago. Two years ago,...

Winners in the Nine Categories.(corporations, CEOs)
December 2, 2005... SIR TERRY LEAHY CEO, TESCO This year belongs to Tesco and Leahy, as they do the double (winning both Most Admired Company and Most Admired Leader awards respectively) for the second time in three years. Tesco also wins outright two of the...

Sector by Sector.(Britain's Most Admired Companies)
December 2, 2005... The essence of Britain's Most Admired Companies is peer review, for the gold standard of analysis is as applicable in business as it is in academe. Here we take an in-depth look at the highs and lows of the 22 industry sectors covered, listing...

The MT Interview: Nigel Boardman.(Slaughter and May)
December 2, 2005... Enigmatic and self-contained, this Slaughter & May partner has made a name as the City's best merger lawyer, bar none. He saw off both of Philip Green's assaults on M&S - going for the jugular each time - and personally advises an astonishing...

New Power Generation.(green energy)
December 2, 2005... Once the province of cranks, green energy has grown up. Now it's a real business opportunity. Ian Wylie reports. Thirty years ago last June, Tony Benn and his wife skimmed along the Thames on a hydrofoil from Tower Pier to BP's Isle of...

Love at Work.
December 2, 2005... For many, the workplace is the best place to find a partner, but office affairs can be dangerous career-breakers. Does that make it the company's business? Mark Vernon reports. For months, he watched her as she passed by his office. He...

Ten Ways to cut your I.T. budget.(information technology)
December 2, 2005... Getting to grips with your organisation's technology could not only turn out to be a money-saver, but also help everyone work more productively, reports Ron Condon. At the beginning of November, the Government unveiled an ambitious plan to...

Table Talk: Where Karan Bilimoria eats..(Cafe Spice Namaste)(Brief Article)(Restaurant Review)
December 2, 2005... Picking one favourite restaurant is very difficult, as I use so many for business, but if I had to it would be the Cafe Spice Namaste, near the Tower of London. Since attending its opening 10 years ago, I've had innumerable meetings at...

On The Road.(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 2, 2005... The Saab 9-3 SportWagon is no sports car, but there's a dynamic flourish to its lines Inside the boot of every new Saab 9-3 SportWagon is a small plane. Okay, it's only a small chrome-plated model of a jet that doubles as a pull-handle...

MT Wealth: Coming to terms with rising school fees.
December 2, 2005... Our quarterly series on personal finance, in association with UBS Wealth Management, looks at managing the costs of private education. Steve Lodge reports. Putting the kids through independent school has long been one of the defining...

MT Business Travel: Frequent Flyer Ann Marie Rosa's Guide to London.
December 2, 2005... HOW TO GET THERE: I'm based in New York, and usually fly to London Heathrow with BA. On its red-eye flights, you eat before boarding. This is great, because you need every minute to sleep if you want to be on the ball in the morning. ...

What's Your Problem?
December 2, 2005... Q. I STARTED MY CAREER in marketing comms in two medium-sized companies. Because of their size I worked alone (reporting periodically to the marketing VP and the MD), being solely responsible for the creation and full management of all...

First-Class Coach.
December 2, 2005... Q. I've been at my company for three years, and my line manager has just announced that she's leaving. I know I'd be perfect for the role, but my firm is desperate to appoint someone from outside, as they want to attract new blood. As an...

MT Business Lifeforms: The H&S officer.(health and safety )
December 2, 2005... Nigel Ward's mission is to guard the safety of all VM's staff, but will they listen? With the synchronised beep of a thousand incoming e-mails, another of Nigel Ward's missives touches down in the inboxes of the hapless employees of VM...