Management Today articles from December 2007

Management Today archives from December 2007

The spinnable business of CSR.(Community and Environmental Responsibility)
December 1, 2007... From all those shooting stars on the cover you'll have gathered that it's Most Admired time of the year again. Marks & Spencer has finally knocked Tesco off the summit that the Cheshunt grocer called its own for the past two years. Well...

Chartered Management Institute: In my opinion.
December 1, 2007... Chartered Management Institute Companion Martina Milburn identifies strategies to enable charities to survive, thrive and achieve their purpose. A charity's success is judged ultimately by its shareholders - those it seeks to help. But if...

The MT Diary.(Management Today)
December 1, 2007... Beefing up French universities; Mumbai rises; Singapore watches; referendum wheeze. If you ask a Frenchman for the French word for parsnip, you normally get a puzzled Gallic shrug. In fact, there is a word (panais) but it is little used....

Ten ways to...Survive Christmas.(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... 1. Stay on top of the holiday rota 2. Factor the break into project plans 3. Check overseas office closures 4. Remember: clients take holidays too 5. Catch up on your filing 6. Don't make jollity compulsory 7. Don't expect post-party...

It'll never fly: Tofu.(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Some foreign words are better left un-translated. 'Tofu' sounds so much more exotic than 'bean curd'. And knowing that tofu is produced by coagulating soy milk and pressing it into curds makes its popularity hard to fathom. Especially...

Dave's eco-nomics: Cut the cardfest.(send an e-card)(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Green alert. 'Tis the season to be jolly, and to have your team's signatures stamped onto cards going out to treasured clients and contacts - and straight into their bins. Hundreds of thousands of trees are pulped each year for...

Earning curve: Water.(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... RBS, sale of Southern Water to JP Morgan pounds 4.2bn Water Aid, public donations ('06) pounds 16.9m Philip Fletcher, part-time chairman, Ofwat, p.a. pounds 100k London plumber, weekend rate, per hour pounds 150 Sewage worker, starting...

Workplace rights: Striking back.(Prison Officers Association's strike)(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Anyone who uses public transport or posts the odd letter will have noticed that strikes are back in fashion. Last year, an alarming 750,500 working days were lost to industrial disputes, up from just 157,000 in 2005. No surprise, then, that...

History Lessons: Apply local knowledge - The Pilgrim Fathers.(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... England in the early 17th century was no place for religious non-conformists. The Protestant Restoration had made life difficult for anyone not keen on the Church of England, causing a steady trickle of dissenters to head overseas for...

Your route to the top: How to get your way.(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Keep your enemies close. Let the other person speak first. You'll gain invaluable insights into their true concerns and they'll be more likely to listen when it's your turn. Delve deep. Ask questions to find out what's driving them....

Why business is like... A Tarantino movie.
December 1, 2007... When Quentin Tarantino released Reservoir Dogs in 1992, the new director scored a smash hit, full of razor-sharp dialogue, clever chronology and bloody violence. It was a rich formula: every one of his later successes, from Pulp Fiction...

Do it right: Managing Regional Teams.(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Talk to them. Keep them up-to-date with what's happening across the business. Make sure they hear company info at the right time, through the right channels. Don't rely solely on the intranet - visit them regularly. Be sensitive. They...

Slogan Doctor: Adidas - 'Impossible Is Nothing'.(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Many slogans work by subverting a well-known phrase, and sportswear giant Adidas' 'Impossible is nothing' is one of those. It takes a motivational cliche, 'nothing is impossible', and reverses its word order to create a new phrase that is...

How does he manage?: Executive chef - John Hearn Tapenade, Farnham, Surrey.(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... - When did you become a manager? When I was 18, as a chef at Kempton Park Racecourse. There were only two of us, working with a bank of casual staff. I learnt from my mistakes, like not being clear enough and not understanding people as...

Remember This.(quotations)(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... 'Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day' - Samuel Goldwyn said it 'You are as safe with me as with the Bank of England' - Robert Maxwell said it

Are you suffering from: The Spotlight Effect.(shyness)(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Are you convinced that every time you open your mouth to speak in a meeting everyone is judging you? Does this make you blush and hesitate? If you so much as trip or stutter when approaching the stage, do you assume the speech is a dud...

Words-worth: Helicopter view.(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... To take a 'helicopter view' is, as the name suggests, to rise above the detail of a situation and look at the big picture. It is, literally, an overview. It's a piece of contemporary jargon, but older than you might think. Its original...

Stat of the month: Cyclemania - 27m - Number of cyclists in Britain.(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Our weather is unpredictable and our roads potholed, but more and more of us are adopting the 'two wheels good, four wheels bad' lifestyle once exclusive to students and eccentric lecturers. There are a number of reasons for this. One is...

How he made his Pile: John Madejski - Entrepreneur and philanthropist.(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Who is he? Chairman of Reading FC, Tory supporter, philanthropist and alleged lover of Cilla Black. Madejski, 66, is worth pounds 350m. His surname is seen on the front of schools, museums and, most famously, Reading's football stadium. ...

Duncan fletcher: If I had to start again..(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Rugby is a real passion for me - it's a unique and fascinating sport, probably the greatest spectator game of all. So if I hadn't ended up coaching cricket, I'd love to have gone down the same route in rugby. But when I was growing up...

Crash Course in... outsourcing.
December 1, 2007... Your business is running smoothly, but overheads are uncompetitive. Is it time to move some functions to a market where labour is cheaper? Start with strategy. 'Don't offshore just because it sounds a good idea,' says Martyn Hart,...

MT Masterclass: PQ (political quotient).(Management Today )(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... - What is it? Yes, just what we needed: a new acronym for business. We've had IQ, EQ, even SQ - social intelligence - and now here comes PQ: political quotient, or intelligence. The idea behind this label is that complex, political...

Decisions: David Evans - , Founder and CEO of the performance-improvement firm.(Grass Roots Group PLC)(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... MY BEST... When I was first hawking my plan around, trying to raise money, the banks kept asking: why Grass Roots? I said it's because that's what I'm dealing with - with issues of the grass roots of a business. If you listen to the...

Behind the Spin: ITV.(Independent Television News Ltd.)
December 1, 2007... THE DILEMMA Even Coronation Street's scriptwriters couldn't have conjured up the drama at ITV this year. One of TV's most turbulent years, 2007 brought shame on the UK's largest commercial broadcaster for the way it exploited its...

A deeper shade of green.(Arctic meltdown)
December 1, 2007... Many firms assume the garb of sustainability in order to attract and keep staff, but they have to look much more urgently at wasteful practices. By 16 September this year, the area covered by Arctic ice had shrunk to 1.6 million square...

Britain's Most Admired Companies: Marks Sparkles.
December 1, 2007... With the highest score ever, M&S is a worthy winner of our Most Admired. Behind every successful company, there's an inspired leader: Rose at M&S, Leahy at Tesco and Murdoch Jnr at BSkyB. Meanwhile, retailing's on a roll, but telecoms and...

Britain's Most Admired Companies - Sector by Sector.
December 1, 2007... Here's the nitty-gritty of the Most Admired awards: stark proof of the peer-group assessment that is at the heart of MT's poll. The 10 largest public companies in each sector rated their nine rivals. Our commentary focuses on how the league-...

Britain's Most Admired Companies: ... And the least admired.(Hikma Pharmaceuticals and Sports Direct)
December 1, 2007... Marks may sparkle but at the other end of our BMAC survey, nestling at 217, is Sports Direct. Reclusive boss Mike Ashley claims he has balls of steel to cope with City criticism but is taking refuge in the leather balls at Newcastle United....

The MT Interview: Chris Hyman.(Management Today)(Interview)
December 1, 2007... Resolutely fit, abstemious, religious, the CEO of service-supply firm Serco - 4th in our Most Admired Companies list - is an unusual businessperson in an unfashionable sector. Surviving 9/11 reinforced his belief in 'people first, profits...

Changes a-brewing.(Adnams Brewery)
December 1, 2007... Southwold brewer Adnams is proud of its past but has just invested pounds 10m in its future, including a state-of-the-art brewhouse. A plc with strong family input, it has its own way of doing things, from a quietly profitable green strategy to...

Wiki at Work.(online social networks)
December 1, 2007... Your company is more likely to attract the brightest and keep them if its own internal communications reflect the slick, collaborative informality of Web 2.0, with its blogs, wikis and social-networking sites. So there's a good case for going...

Books of the Year: Off-screen fantasy and online reality.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... MT asked three well-known and well-read business celebrities to tell us about their best reads of 2007. First up, and with as broad a range as you could wish... My first choice is Suspects by David Thomson, first published in 1985 and now...

Books of the Year: My China syndrome.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... I have made three trips to China this year, having never been before, and I have fallen, if not in love, then at least into a deep fascination with this amazing country. Old China hands among my friends laugh at my new-found enthralment,...

Books of the Year: Upfront with Blair and power presentation.(Book review)
December 1, 2007... It might be a bit nerdy. So fretted Tony Blair about the suggestion that Michael Barber, head of his Delivery Unit, give the press a PowerPoint presentation on the Government's progress towards its domestic policy targets. It was - but it was a...

Motor Mouth.(Caterham Seven Roadsports 125 )(Product/service evaluation)
December 1, 2007... The Caterham Seven Roadsports 125 is certainly a head-turner, but would you roar up at work in one? Sathnam Sanghera did. There comes a point during every test drive when you have to ask yourself: am I going to drive this thing to work?...

Table talk: Where ruby hammer eats..( Cecconi's )(Restaurant review)
December 1, 2007... I've loved Cecconi's since Nick Jones of Soho House came on board in 2005. I went there yonks ago and found it quite stuffy, but I love it as it is now and go there quite a bit. Its old-fashioned Venetian style is fantastic. You can just sit at...

What's your problem?(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Q: An amateur dramatics club was launched by the company last year, which, ironically, has since descended into farce and is now causing tension. There are fights over which plays to run and who should get the parts. But worst of all is our...

What's your problem?(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Q: I run my own fledgling business in marketing communications and I'm having trouble recruiting. I've been through three PAs in the past year. They all had the right experience and were keen. The first I let go because she wasn't up to the...

What's your problem?
December 1, 2007... Q: I've become good friends with another woman at work and can't help noticing how thin she is becoming. I'd like to raise the matter with her as she looks ill and I am concerned, but feel as though I might be overstepping the mark. What do you...

First-Class Coach.
December 1, 2007... Q: I'm deputy head of department and I hope to be promoted to run another department next year. The problem is that there's another deputy who is very competitive with me and is undermining me. He hogs all the airtime in important meetings,...

Dubai Report: Dubai's race to the top.(Country overview)
December 1, 2007... The ruling family's strategy to transform this small emirate into a world-class business and leisure hub by 2015 is impressive. But serious challenges loom. Morice Mendoza reports. Ever since Sheikh Rashid Al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, gave...

Dubai Report: A city on edge.
December 1, 2007... The burgeoning emirate faces problems with recruitment, high costs, racism and traffic. But Dubai's hook is the promise of perpetual renewal, says Jonathan West. I first arrived in Dubai in 1996. At that time, no-one had heard of the...

The Sharp end: What, me work in PR?(public relations)
December 1, 2007... Getting his come-uppance as a hack, Rhymer Rigby dons a flack's jacket for a day. Working in public relations isn't a normal Sharp End job. You sit at a desk, you wear what you like and you work in a nice office. But suppose you're a...