Management Today articles from December 2006

Management Today archives from December 2006

Editorial: Admirable but not flawless.(Editorial)
December 4, 2006... As you can see from the name up in lights on the cover, we're at that Most Admired time of the year. It's a mark of their enduring commercial success that Tesco and Sir Terry Leahy have scooped the top two honours yet again. Well done to...

Contributors.
December 4, 2006... CILLA SNOWBALL: Ad agency Abbott Mead Vickers' CEO offers tips for a literary Yule. She picks authors as diverse as Al Gore, Charles Handy and Lynne Truss, and even finds room for poetry. Each work has earned what Snowball calls the 'ultimate...

The MT diary.
December 4, 2006... Bullionaires' banquet; veggies off-menu in boom-town Madrid; Eurobike rolling again. Here is a Trivial Pursuit question to begin with: What is the largest dinner of the year in London? The Lord Mayor's Banquet? No way: it's quality, not...

In My Opinion: Chartered Management Institute.(Lord Nelson)(Organization overview)
December 4, 2006... Chartered Management Institute Companion Roy Clare reflects on how Lord Nelson's principles of active leadership resonate today. A background commanding HMS Invincible may not seem an obvious preparation for directing the National Maritime...

Ten ways to ... face the winter.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... 1. Get a daily dose of fresh air and natural light 2. Catch up with clients before the year's out 3. Book a weekend break for after Christmas 4. Assess the past year's achievements... 5.... and plan for the next 6. Eat plenty of fruit...

It'll never fly: Teleshopping.(Sit-Up TV)(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... Deep in the recesses of Freeview lurks a modern breed of seller, with 24-hour access to the world's living-rooms - and no risk of slammed doors. They peddle dust-gatherers such as TV-dinner tables, greeting card construction packs and...

How does she manage?: Plastic surgeon - Dalia Nield, The London Clinic.(Interview)(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... When did you become a manager? I switched to private practice from the NHS in 1995, when the Government tried to close St Bartholomew's hospital, London, where I was a consultant. What does management mean to you? It's a balancing...

Earning curve: Ethical living.
December 4, 2006... - Estimated UK spend on organic/ethical food ('06) pounds 2bn - Fairtrade Foundation, estimated sales ('06) pounds 230m - Windsave, maker of home wind turbines, sales ('06) pounds 18m - Penny Newman, CEO, Cafedirect ('05) pounds 76k -...

Workplace rights: Beware CV cheats.(curriculum vitae)(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... Jeffrey Archer famously lied on his CV. And earlier this year, the CEO of US electronics retailer RadioShack had to resign after it transpired he had falsely claimed to have a BSc from the Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College when he joined the...

History Lessons: Patience in adversity - Muhammad Ali.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... When 'The Greatest' headed to Zaire in 1974 for the Rumble in the Jungle against title-holder George Foreman, no-one gave him a chance. His opponent was an unbeaten bruiser seven years his junior who had won 37 of his 40 fights through...

Your route to the top: Cultivate your supplier.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... Get to know the person as well as the product. Do they have kids? Where do they go on holiday? By uncovering mutual interests, you can build a relationship beyond the contract that will produce exceptional results. Define the goalposts. Be...

Why business is like ... Online dating.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... The three certainties of online dating are exclamation marks, emoticons and, inevitably, economy with the truth. You can assume that when someone says they have an 'average' physique, they'll be a person of size. Anyone claiming to be...

Do it right: Mobile manners.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... Switch off. Be boss of your phone, not its slave. Ban yourself from the BlackBerry at weekends, don't leap at every beep, and be firm if your superior expects split-second replies to out-of-hours e-mail. Remember where you are. Ranting down...

Slogan Doctor: Sky: Feel everything.(Venture Three)(Sky Television PLC)(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... High-definition television is a hard sell. In a shop, you can demonstrate it, but with customers watching ordinary TV, you can only invite them to imagine the advantages. In March, before its HD service was available, Sky worked with brand...

We'd love that job: Stunt person - Abbi Collins.(Interview)(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... What do you do? Everything, from setting myself on fire and falling down stairs to jumping off buildings, crashing cars and having fights. I performed in The Da Vinci Code, Doctor Who and both Bridget Jones films, where I doubled Renee...

Remember This.
December 4, 2006... 'It is difficult, but not impossible, to conduct strictly honest business' - Mahatma Gandhi said it 'The goal of war is peace, of business, leisure' - Aristotle said it.

Are you suffering from: Meno-Porsche Syndrome.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... Middle age is getting dodgier to pin down, and so is the midlife crisis. But there is one dead giveaway: the acquisition of the newest, latest, fastest Porsche. This is what gave Roman Abramovich away recently (not the 23-year-old...

Words-worth: Initiative.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... Initiative, the initiative, an initiative: all different, all important in business. 'Initiative' is the ability to act independently; 'the initiative' is what you take when you take the first step; and 'an initiative' is a bureaucrat's...

Stat of the Month: Chinese woo Africa.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... Dollars 50bn (estimated) - The value of Sino-African trade, 2006. That's up from dollars 10 billion at the start of the decade. It's a logical relationship - Africa is rich in oil and other raw materials, China has the capital and a...

How he made his pile: Duncan Bannatyne - Hotel/entertainment magnate.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... Who is he? An entrepreneur known as 'Dragon Duncan' after his stint on BBC 2's Dragon's Den. Bannatyne, 57, started out in a Clydebank tenement house and is now worth pounds 168 million. How did he make his millions? In 1978, after a spell...

Paul Morrell: If I had to start again ..(Davis Langdon & Everest)(Interview)
December 4, 2006... I think we're programmed against regret, but given the luxury of living one life and being invited to dream of another, it would be a waste to make them both the same. So my alter ego would probably have been a barrister. My father was a...

Crash Course in ... Tackling obesity at work.
December 4, 2006... A new Government study says Britons are the most obese people in Europe. Surveying your workforce from the directors down, it strikes you that this is not the leanest of organisations, and the extra weight might be causing sickness absence and...

MT Masterclass: Branding.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... What is it? Everyone wants their goods and services to be memorable. That is what branding is all about. An effective brand conveys a distinctive message. It is both a label and an identity. It may well hint at the price at which you want...

Decisions: Karol Rzepkowski, Johnson sustainable seafoods - MD of Europe's first organic cod farm.(Karol Rzepkowski)
December 4, 2006... MY BEST... was the way in which we decided to switch from farming salmon to farming cod after the MBO in 2005. We resolved to treat cod farming as a completely new business, and not run it along the same lines as the salmon farm. This...

Behind the spin: Ford.(Ford Motor Co.)
December 4, 2006... THE DILEMMA: Just how much mileage is left in Ford, founder of the modern car industry? The company has just recorded its worst deficit for 14 years. A cyclical blip, some might say, but its crisis is symptomatic of an American car...

Paradoxes of perception.
December 4, 2006... Branding can shape our idea of what a company, product or service is all about, but a brand must match up to its reputation in the real world. A constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions,...

Britain's Most Admired Companies: The high-wire act at Tesco.(Company overview)
December 4, 2006... Another double for the dominant supermarket chain and its surefooted leader as they scoop the top awards again in our Britain's Most Admired survey. The skill with which Sir Terry Leahy and his team have stormed the market both overseas and...

Pride comes before a fall.(Survey)
December 4, 2006... Asked to rate their own performance, today's companies are more confident than those of a decade ago. But only a quarter of 1997's super-confident fighters have survived, says andrew saunders. The meek shall inherit the earth, yea, even in the...

The MT Interview: Stuart Rose.(Marks and Spencer )(Interview)
December 4, 2006... His company is the highest riser in MT's Most Admired poll, but Marks & Spencer's CEO won't call it a turnaround - he knows the frailty of any recovery. The sparkling figures, he says, have been achieved by a sound team rigorously applying old...

Too Much Too Young.(Accelerated Success Syndrome )
December 4, 2006... More and more executive fast-trackers are being hit by Accelerated Success Syndrome. Instead of a sense of achievement, they experience burnout and disillusion. Is the firm to blame? Emma de Vita reports. Ours is an accelerated culture. The...

Imagine 2007 ..
December 4, 2006... What does the new year hold for the UK, its economic prospects and its changing role in global business? Richard Scase, emeritus professor of organisational behaviour, Kent Business School, reads his tea-leaves. It is always difficult to...

Just the stuff for a cool Yule.(Brief article)
December 4, 2006... Christmas presents used to be for kids; grown-ups just exchanged book tokens and weary glances. But these days, no-one need be left out of the frenzy of paper-ripping and box-opening. There are plenty of techie gifts for even the most...

Books of the Year.(Henry Stewart)(Howard Davies)
December 4, 2006... MT marks the turning of the year with a bibliophile's retrospective. We asked three well-read senior executives to describe their favourite volumes of 2006. First up... HOWARD DAVIES: WHEN POWER OVERREACHES ITSELF With the recent...

What's your problem?
December 4, 2006... Somebody thumped you, that's all. It happens. Black eyes fade away - and so do memories. Q: Please help me. I'm feeling more and more like a lion led by a donkey. I have so little faith left in my boss that I'm tempted to let rip and tell...

First-class Coach.
December 4, 2006... In your enthusiasm for the new culture, beware of rejecting wholesale what went before. Q: My company merged with a smaller but more dynamic one some months ago. Its culture is quite different to ours, which was pretty conventional. I find...

The Sharp End: A hard day's labouring.(Occupation overview)
December 4, 2006... At a Barratt building site in London's Docklands, Rhymer Rigby wields a broom. I have to hand it to Barratt: for my stint as a building site labourer they really gave me the full Monty. As I discovered, an unskilled labourer doesn't need...