Management Today articles from January 2005

Management Today archives from January 2005

Entrepreneurs of all shapes.
January 1, 2005... Newton comes from the classic mould: restless, awkward, driven, demanding. It is a sign of our security-obsessed times that this year's winner of the MT Top 100 Entrepreneurs is the Biggest Brother of them all: the low-profile king of CCTV...

Contributors.
January 1, 2005... PHILIP BERESFORD Through MT's annual Top 100 Entrepreneurs list, Beresford has become the chronicler of Britain's enterprise elite. Aside from his love of trains, he says true happiness is tracking down new entries for his other magnum...

In my opinion: Chartered management institute.
January 1, 2005... Chartered Management Institute Companion David Radcliffe, CEO of Hogg Robinson, explains how his firm tackled motivational and work/life issues. Technology is a wonderful thing. Mobile telephones, wi-fi laptops and accessories such as the...

The MT diary: Howard Davies.(Column)
January 1, 2005... Hail an election year; Bank's bare mantelpiece; ghost of chancellors past; charity match. It's election year. Probably. Let joy be unconfined. Hours and hours of perfectly balanced three-way analysis to look forward to. Synthetic Newsnight...

Brain Food: Ten ways to ... work well with a P.A.(Personal Assistant )(Brief Article)(Illustration)
January 1, 2005... Tell them how you work best Find out how they work best Communicate regularly and fully Surrender your diary or keep it yourself Don't mess with lunch breaks Pay them what they're worth to you Give ample notice of major crises Don't...

Brain Food: It'll never fly - artificial plants.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... With its dust-shrouded leaves, lurid green plastic stalks and 'soil' that seems to have been used as an ashtray, it is hardly realistic-looking, nor is it welcoming. The fake pot plant's baleful demeanour gives the impression that the company -...

Brain Food: How does she manage? - Diana Cochrane, Director of interior design, Urban Salon.(Brief Article)(Interview)
January 1, 2005... Interior designer, Diana Cochrane, Director of interior design, Urban Salon. When did you become a manager? On the very first project I worked on after leaving the Royal College of Art, which was a portable architectural exhibition....

Brain Food: Earning curve - Detox.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
January 1, 2005... Mike Balfour, CEO, Fitness First, worth pounds 5.05m Franck Riboud, CEO, Danone (owner of Evian), '03 EUR2.49m Detox nurse, Blakenhurst Prison, p.a. pounds 20.2k-pounds 25.30k Graduate dietician, Suffolk hospital, p.a. pounds 18.9k-pounds...

Brain Food: Workplace rights - Fag-end of an era.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Smoking in offices, factories and other enclosed public spaces will be stubbed out in the ashtray of history by the end of 2008. So says the Government's king-size White Paper on public health. Controversial exemptions will include pubs not...

Brain Food: History lessons - Elizabeth I: Cult of the leader.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... In 1558, Elizabeth inherited a demoralised nation riven by religious differences (think rival board factions). Having endured the reigns of the tyrannical Henry VIII and conniving Mary Tudor, the English were desperate for direction. Elizabeth...

Brain Food: Your route to the top - How to stay focused.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Get to know your working pattern. Match your task to your concentration level throughout the day. If you are at your best first thing, work on something tricky and challenging (and leave the admin until later). Set yourself objectives....

Brain Food: Words-worth - Offshoring.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Offshoring sounds like an attractive leisure pursuit, like rafting or surf-canoeing. Well, leisure comes into it: enforced leisure, if your job is offshored to India, Slovakia or Vietnam. As an MT reader, of course, you're more likely to be...

Brain Food: Are you suffering from strategic optimism.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... A Strategic Optimist (not to be confused with a Defensive Pessimist) sees the world through rose-tinted glasses, but unlike your bog-average optimist, does not just assume the world is a happy place. He sets particular tasks and goals for...

Brain Food: We'd love that job - Red Arrows lead pilot - Squadron Leader Dicky Patounas, Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team.(Brief Article)(Interview)
January 1, 2005... What do you do? I'm team leader of the Red Arrows, which consists of 100 people: 10 flyers and 90 others. We're training at present, so I fly three times a day, half an hour at a time. The level of concentration when I'm in the air is...

Brain Food: Remember this.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... 'One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils'. WOODROW WILSON SAID IT 'Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing' WARREN BUFFET SAID IT.

Brain Food: Speaking out - Sir Clive Woodward, former England Rugby Union coach, and Head Coach, British & Irish Lions RFC.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Many successful sporting personalities join the speaker circuit and try to link sporting prowess with cosy business advice. Most haven't a clue about business, so fail to impress. Not so Clive Woodward. Nearly 500 of the cream of...

Brain Food: Business manners - How to run a meeting.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... What's it for? Every meeting must have clear objectives, so don't call one to chat about Wife Swap. Prepare an agenda and stick to it. Omit Any Other Business - it's an invitation for windbags to take over. Who to invite? To keep the...

Brain Food: The Slogan Doctor: The future's bright, the future's orange.(advertising campaigns)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Nothing dates like the future: see Stanley Kubrick's 2001 for details. And yet the most nakedly futuristic of slogans is still running, 10 years after its introduction, in the fastest-moving of industries. Try finding a battery for a...

Brain Food: David James - If I had to start again.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... I wish everything had happened a bit sooner. I would have had a much better career if I'd had the confidence of knowing it would come right in the end - I'd have made a much more determined attempt to develop a political career. Instead, I've...

Brain Food: How he made his pile - Roger De Haan, former chairman, Saga.(Brief Article)(Biography)
January 1, 2005... Who is he? De Haan capitalised on his father Sidney's one-hotel business to create a travel-to-insurance empire for the over-50s. It was sold last year in an MBO for pounds 1.35 billion, enabling De Haan to retire a very rich man. How did...

Brain Food: Us and them - Egypt.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Egypt has the second-largest economy in the Arab world after Saudi Arabia, and the largest population (67.9 million). Predictions that the number of Egyptians will top 123 million by 2029 has prompted the government to tackle its population...

Brain Food: Crash course in ... Your first 100 days as CEO.(Chief Executive Officer )
January 1, 2005... For the first time in your life, you're the main man (or woman). You've stepped up to the top job; now you've got to work out what it is that top dogs do. The expectation is palpable. Calm down. Too much attention is paid to a new...

Brain Food: MT Masterclass - Execution.(Management Today )(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... What is it? Don't get the wrong idea. This subject has nothing to do with gruesome killing. Execution is the catch-all heading to describe the business of actually getting things done. Executives are supposed to be good at it (note their job...

Brain Food: Mark Derry - Loch Fyne Restaurants, Founder of the Nationwide Seafood chain.
January 1, 2005... MY BEST... I developed Loch Fyne Restaurants using private investment only. We went round cap-in-hand to over 200 friends and family and raised pounds 1.2 million. Later, we raised a total of pounds 4.2 million through two further rounds...

Brain Food: Behind the spin.(Rentokil Initial PLC sees its fate in shareholders hands)
January 1, 2005... THE DILEMMA Pest control to security services group Rentokil Initial hit the headlines in May when its chief architect and chairman Sir Clive Thompson was ousted in a boardroom coup led by non-exec Brian McGowan. Washing the ratcatcher's...

Destructive aspiration.(Pierre Danon joins Capgemini S.A.)
January 1, 2005... For CEO Hermelin, the noisy arrival of Danon at Capgemini must be awkward. Some people cannot hide their ambition. When BT announced that Pierre Danon, head of its retail division, was leaving for Capgemini, that organisation's chief...

It's cold outside a firm.(future of network economy)
January 1, 2005... The network economy is as much a mirage as the new economy - the plc endures. Remember the network economy? Round about now, the boring old plc was scheduled for the dustbin of history, to be replaced by global chains of IT-enabled,...

Books: The uphill path to learning.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Adversity and failure contribute to practical wisdom, the hallmark of excellence in leadership, says John Adair. But this book exalts emotion at the expense of reason. Leadership will always remain something of a mystery, although in...

Books: Three of a kind - Make the most of your time.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... How to Succeed in Business Without Working So Damn Hard Robert J Kriegel Time Warner pounds 10.99 - Could be useful. I'll Sleep When I Die Adam C Worgan Matador pounds 9.99 - Of minor interest. Living the 80/20 Way...

Books: How to go with the flow of your own will.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Behind the cosy style, you'll find a collection of useful ideas that may help you live the life you want, says Francis Beckett. The Mind Gym - Wake Your Mind Up Time Warner Books pounds 12.99 MT price pounds 10.99 To order, visit...

The MT Interview: Peter Beresford, Chairman and CEO McDonald's UK.(Chief Executive Officer)(Interview)
January 1, 2005... McDonald's has lost its way, and nowhere more evidently than in the UK. In-house troubleshooter Peter Beresford has been parachuted in to rescue British operations. The new CEO admits that management had ceased listening to customers. Time to...

Britain's Top 100 Entrepreneurs: Champions of British enterprise.
January 1, 2005... MT presents, in association with RBS, its second annual ranking of the UK's top wealth creators. Philip Beresford salutes their healthy geographical spread and ethnic mix. Britain's leading entrepreneurs are creating new jobs as never...

Britain's Top 100 Entrepreneurs: Premier league.
January 1, 2005... Investors wary of high-tech stock take note - our elite Top 10 manifest a distinct techno and telecommunications bias. But there's a touch of showbiz stardust too. 1: MICHAEL NEWTON - Anglo Design Holdings 'I have been known to say my...

Britain's Top 100 Entrepreneurs: Women of Substance.
January 1, 2005... Our top female entrepreneurs' businesses include a recruitment agency, retail fashion and home accessories, a call centre and a theatre production company. 13: PENNY STREETER - Ambition 24 Hours For someone whose first business went...

Britain's Top 100 Entrepreneurs: Kindred Spirits.
January 1, 2005... These top family-owned businesses range from a jewellery retailer and several housebuilders to a caterer, healthcare group and a sportswear manufacturer. 24: FRED & PETER DONE - Done Brothers (Cash Betting) The Done brothers were...

Britain's Top 100 Entrepreneurs: Veterans.
January 1, 2005... Our old-hand entrepreneurs, in their sixties and seventies, are an inspiration even to their most maverick young rivals, proving that flair and drive remain undimmed. =47. HAROLD MARTIN - HW Martin Holdings At 77, Sir Arnold shows no...

Escape from the budget straitjacket.(annual financial planning for businesses)
January 1, 2005... Annual plans are a drain on resources, a pain to prepare, entirely fictional and a hostage to fortune. So why do companies bother with this yearly pantomime? Because there's no other way. Oh yes there is, says Simon Caulkin. The finance...

Spitzer's Blitz.(Eliot Spitzer's campaign against corruption, personal agenda)
January 1, 2005... The attorney general of New York State is using his full powers to root out corrupt business practice, extracting heavy fines from trusted Wall Street institutions and the most prestigious corporations. The American public love him for it, but...

Rose-tinted road to it ruin.
January 1, 2005... Why do government computer installations break down with such calamitous regularity, costing the taxpayer millions of pounds? A two-way lack of understanding and an 'irrational exuberance' are partly to blame, says Tony Collins. When Child...

MT Survey of Surveys: Fitness.(Management Today)
January 1, 2005... To beef up their profits, gym chains are looking to attract an older, less fanatical, membership with cafes and pampering treatments alongside the weights and treadmills. Lucy Aitken reports. After all the mince pies have been scoffed and a...

MT Business Travel: Frequent flyer - Attilio De Vita's guide to Rome.
January 1, 2005... HOW TO GET THERE: If I'm flying from Heathrow for a lunchtime meeting, I take the first flight of the day, which is with Alitalia at 6.40. It arrives at Leonardo da Vinci (Fiumicino) airport at 10.15. Alitalia also has the last flight of the...

MT Business Traveller: Room service - Where Hugh Edmeades stays.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... FOR BUSINESS: I usually stay in the big monster hotels for work, but last year the Dubai Rotary Club organised a charity sale in Dubai, and put us up at the Burj Al Arab hotel. It's everything they say it is, a world of luxurious living where...

MT Business Traveller: On the road.(Management Today)
January 1, 2005... The Smart Forfour's comparative conventionality brings it into competition with dozens of its ilk. Does your car have a face? With headlights for eyes and a grille for a mouth, many cars can vaguely resemble a visage, but Mercedes-Benz,...

What's your problem?
January 1, 2005... You have little choice but to ignore ruffled feathers and seek a high-noon meeting with the CEO. Q: I've been chief officer for a branch of a national charity for 18 months. The board asked me to identify and present the organisation's...

First-class coach.
January 1, 2005... You can do some job-sculpting yourself by considering what your ideal next job would be. Q: I am in a comfortable position at work, and have been manager of a small team for four years. Someone recently told me I should be moving on to the...

MT Business Lifeforms: The facilities manager - Ken Potter, facilities manager, BC plc.(Biography)
January 1, 2005... Down in the bowels of the building, where the floors are all shiny concrete, hard by the postroom and opposite the anti-reception (where couriers and others banned from the gleaming foyer arrive), is a lone office like no other in the building....