Management Today articles from March 2005

Management Today archives from March 2005

Contributors.
March 1, 2005... FRANCIS BECKETT: A former editor of two business magazines, Beckett is also a biographer of two Labour PMs: Clem Attlee and Tony Blair. Writing about Blair's management style in this month's MT, Beckett is clear on who he prefers: 'Attlee was...

Blair, from Bambi to Thumper.(Tony Blair)
March 1, 2005... If you don't like the prime minister's way of operating, you'd label him an autocrat. Like storm clouds gathering over the prairie, it looks as though there's an election on the way. Here at MT, we would not dream of insulting your...

Chartered Management Institute: In my opinion - Susan Rice, Lloyds TSB Scotland.
March 1, 2005... Chartered Management Institute Companion Susan Rice, CEO of Lloyds TSB Scotland, believes that asking questions is the key to good leadership. As a young dean at an American university some years ago, I found myself facing angry students...

The MT diary.
March 1, 2005... Scrums at Davos; the weather foils Chirac; Mandelson carries it off; quirks of the Borse. It was the first time Angelina Jolie had invited me to a party, so I didn't expect to chat with her for long. And so it turned out. All events at...

Brain Food: Ten ways to do the right thing.
March 1, 2005... Remember you're dealing with people Charge a fair price Don't exploit producers Discriminate on talent only Be open in your communication Keep your books straight and clean Help others grow and learn Get involved in the local...

Brain Food: It'll never fly - Camping.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... You're cold and wet, trying to get to sleep in a muddy field with just a polyester flysheet for protection against passing wildlife. Surviving on a diet of carbonised sausages and Pot Noodles, bumbling through hedges at midnight to find the...

Brain Food: How does he manage? Police dispatcher - James Ware, Communications Officer, Met. Police Control Room, Tower Hamlets.(Interview)
March 1, 2005... When did you become a manager? In December 2003, when I began dispatching police vehicles to calls logged by officers and 999 operators. I manage the Open Incidents (OI) list, matching drivers to calls and making sure that officers meet...

Earning Curve: Lotteries.
March 1, 2005... Stralfors Group, Lotto ticket printing contract ('00) pounds 22m AMV BBDO, ad agency, Camelot account, worth pounds 9m Dianne Thompson, CEO, Camelot Group ('04) pounds 608k Trainee lottery ball calibrator, p.a. pounds 18k Ticket-seller,...

Brain Food: Workplace rights - Walking the talk.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Regulations on informing and consulting employees start to apply on 6 April, heralding a sea-change in British industrial relations. Unlike other EU nations, this country has no established tradition of works councils comprising management and...

Brain Food: History lessons - Diversification - Henry Ford.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Credited with bringing the motorcar to the masses, American industrialist Henry Ford changed manufacturing forever with the introduction of his Model T in 1908. Priced at dollars 850, his no-frills automobile undercut its rivals with the...

Brain Food: Your route to the top - Peaceful persuasion.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Have a plan. Consider the route that you are going to take and how to deal with resistance. But be ready to change it. Know your audience. Discover their real concerns and interests, whether that might be wanting a promotion or to close a...

Brain Food: Words-worth - Compliance.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Compliance, or accommodating the regulatory demands of a hyperactive government, has become a major preoccupation for every business. Some complain that compliance has in fact become their business, leaving business as a part-time activity....

Brain Food: Are you suffering from Hurried Woman Syndrome.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Thirty million women apparently suffer from this new disorder, identified by the Texas-based doctor Brent W Bost. Symptoms include fatigue, low mood, weight gain and lack of sex drive. Most vulnerable are - surprise, surprise - women between...

Brain Food: We'd love that job - Inventor - Mark Sheahan, managing director, Compgen.(Interview)
March 1, 2005... What do you do? I look at packaging and find a way of improving it. I try to get an idea for an opening action up to manufacturing standard on paper. If I think it has some commercial merit, I'll have prototypes made. If these work well, I'll...

Brain Food: Remember this.
March 1, 2005... 'Miracles can be made, but only by sweating' - Giovanni Agnelli said it 'There is no such thing as great talent without great willpower' - Honore de Balzac said it

Brain Food: Speaking out - Ben Verwaayen, CEO, BT Group.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Ben Verwaayen kicked off FT Conferences' two-day telecoms event and batted not an eyelid as he was almost introduced as Mr Volkswagen. He went for the pacing-tiger style as, without a note or slide, he set out his overview of the state of play....

Brain Food: Business manners - How to do e-mail.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Think before you click. Is your e-mail necessary? A 'crazy' office joke is non-essential; latest sales figures are. Avoid an unspecific 'Hi' subject line and don't waffle about weekend escapades. Be concise and clear about action required from...

Brain Food: Slogan Doctor KitKat: Make the most of your break.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Here's a product that was market leader for 70 years. The same slogan kept it there from 1957. Would you have changed it? J Walter Thomson's 'Have a break, have a KitKat' scored brilliantly for recognition, but Nestle, owner of KitKat since...

Brain Food: If i had to start again.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... I would do it pretty much how I did it before - it worked out very well, and far better than I ever thought it would. I'm satisfied with the life that I've lived and the people that I've known. To succeed in PR, you must be able to work with...

Brain Food: How he made his pile - The Duke of Westminster, Chairman, Grosvenor group.(Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Who is he? Thanks to a marriage between a Cheshire squire and a teenage heiress in the 17th century, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, worth pounds 5 billion, owns 300 acres in Mayfair and Belgravia. How did he make his millions? At 28,...

Brain Food: Us and them - Bulgaria.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... In the Soviet bloc, Bulgaria's steel, chemicals, electronics, IT and armaments industries were developed impressively from 1946. After 1990, these artificially boosted industries proved ill-suited to the post-Soviet world. In '96, economic...

Brain Food: Crash course in ... Creating a CSR strategy.(corporate social responsibility)
March 1, 2005... A blue-chip customer has just asked to see your CSR report: you thought corporate social responsibility was something only oil companies did. You need to embrace the subject fast. Can do, must do. CSR is not just for the big boys. From...

Brain Food: MT Masterclass - Vision.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... What is it? Even before he was voted out of office in '92, President Bush Snr knew he had a problem with what he called 'the vision thing'. A vision is what an inspiring leader or organisation has: a view of the world, its place in it and...

Brain Food: Decisions - Nerio Alessandri, Technogym - Founder of Europe's leading fitness equipment maker.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... MY BEST... When I started out on my own in Italy 20 years ago, I took a huge chance by going against everything the fitness industry was about. I decided to challenge the prevailing idea that exercise machines should be about building up...

Brain Food: Behind the spin.(sales and earnings)
March 1, 2005... THE DILEMMA Despite being rescued from near-insolvency in 1998 by Malaysian investors, Laura Ashley, the English Rose of the high street, continues to wilt. Reserves of its staple womenswear customers have dwindled as its trademark...

The trouble with trust: If mutual confidence among management and staff is lost, performance is affected.
March 1, 2005... Trust me, I'm a journalist. Doesn't work, does it? And it is no better if the occupation is replaced with politician or company director. Across swathes of public life, levels of trust are in terminal decline. We don't trust companies, so we...

A paler shade of Green.(Terry Green's secret of business success)
March 1, 2005... Same surname, same ambition, but Terry falls way short of his mentor Philip. Do you sincerely want to be rich? Such a question wouldn't have caused Terry Green a moment of doubt. That he wanted to emulate the financial success of his chum...

Techno life.
March 1, 2005... Chef Paul Bloxham's restaurant - a Michelin good food award-winning inn called The Cabinet at Reed, Hertfordshire - may be hundreds of years old, but the technology he uses to run it is bang up to date. He prices dishes and makes menu notes on...

Books: Will Gordon get his way?(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Although showing signs of hasty publication, this riveting book gives an insider's perspective on the architect of Britain's economic success, reports Howard Davies. One Friday evening in April 1995, my wife and I had retreated to our...

Books: Three of a kind - Public speaking and presentations.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... LEND ME YOUR EARS; Max Atkinson; Vermilion; pounds 9.99 The most important thing about this book is the author. Professor Max Atkinson is the man who trained a novice speaker to speak at the 1984 SDP conference. She went on to get the only...

Books: A gong system that just doesn't ring true.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... For all the guru's undoubted achievements, this weird but not wonderful book shows him in decline, says Stefan Stern. THE SIX VALUE MEDALS Edward de Bono Vermillion pounds 8.99 MT price pounds 7.99 To order, visit...

Books: Professional advice for the man minding the children.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Although short on hard fact and heartache, this welcome book for stay-at-home dads provides a strategic route through the domestic minefield, says Paul Arnott. Years ago, when I was working in television, John Simpson wrote a...

Books: The marque as a five-way, multi-sensory experience.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Too much and yet not enough... this book on the art of branding is breezily written and offers quirky facts, says Robert Jones, but is jargon-heavy and silent on strategy. BRAND SENSE Martin Lindstrom Kogan Page pounds 16.99 To...

Books: The book that shook.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Explorers, edited by Desmond Wilcox and published by the BBC in 1975, really brought geography to life for me. It was based on scripts by various authors, which were narrated by David Attenborough for an accompanying TV series. As a...

Blair's way.(Tony Blair)
March 1, 2005... The premier's style of managing national affairs is unlike that of any predecessor. From the start, he has been impatient with committee structures and bureaucracy, taking his inspiration from can-do American business practice. But has he cast...

The low-cost retail revolution.
March 1, 2005... With their rock-bottom prices, it is not hard to see why 'value' retailers such as Primark and TK Maxx have captured such a large chunk of the clothing market. And it's M&S, that bastion of the high street, that has lost out, says Fiona Walsh....

Be more persuasive.
March 1, 2005... The art of convincing others that your point of view is the right one is a vital business skill, and one well worth cultivating for your career's sake, says Rebecca Hoar. When was the last time you got suckered into something you didn't...

The MT interview: Adam Applegarth.(Interview)
March 1, 2005... The youthful CEO of Northern Rock is the FTSE-100's champion of regional commitment - as rooted in the north-east as the bank he runs. Having kept the focus on mortgages, he has shown broader-based lenders the way to cost efficiency. But the...

MT Wealth: Your portfolio and how to grow it.
March 1, 2005... The first of a quarterly series, presented in association with UBS Wealth Management, designed to help you to get the most out of your personal assets. We are living in paradoxical times when it comes to personal finance and investment. On...

Homing in.
March 1, 2005... The technology and communications infrastructure is now robust and fast enough - no, really - for a wide range of employees to do their job effectively without going past their front door. RHYMER RIGBY brings us up to speed. Consultants,...

Distilling the Shetland dream.(Blackwood Distillers)(Biography)
March 1, 2005... Caroline Whitfield believes a unique location, an innovative marketing strategy and hard graft will seal Blackwood Distillers' scotch-making reputation, says Richard Lofthouse. As whisky drinkers across the globe will testify, if you want...

MT business travel: Frequent flyer Zafar Iqbal's guide to Prague.
March 1, 2005... HOW TO GET THERE: From Heathrow, British Airways has three flights a day to Prague Ruzyne airport. So does CzechAir, and I use whichever is more convenient. There are cheaper flights with easyJet from Gatwick and Stansted. AIRPORT TO TOWN:...

MT business travel: Room service where Ben Langdon stays.
March 1, 2005... FOR BUSINESS: I travel to the US a lot with work. In my mid-twenties and thirties I used to love hotels like New York's Soho Grand and the Royalton. There was nothing like them in London at the time, and they seemed so cool. You'd be hanging...

MT business travel: On the road.(Land Rover Discovery)(Product/Service Evaluation)
March 1, 2005... Robustly built and well crafted, Land Rover's new Discovery should challenge Toyota for durability. It's a weighty issue, the four-wheel drive controversy into which Land Rover launches its new Discovery. This vehicle is more than a ton...

What's your problem?
March 1, 2005... You are a bit of a fraud, but not nearly as much of one as your conscience prompts you to think. Q: Due to an ill-judged love affair at work, I handed in my resignation, as the bitterness between me and my former partner was causing such a...

First-class coach: You'll probably find that most people feel proud to share their knowledge with colleagues.
March 1, 2005... Q: Having employed some new young recruits, I'm shocked at how much more than me they know about our industry. I've realised that my own knowledge is out-of-date, but with things changing so fast, it would take me a lot of time each month to...

MT business lifeforms: The sandwich man - Flying visitor Roger Doultry is a breadhead in more ways than one.(Biography)
March 1, 2005... The cry of 'Sandwiches! Sandwiches!' echoes across the office and the deskbound drones lift their heads in unison like so many prairie dogs. There's a stampede towards the sandwich man and his bulging hamper of epicurean delights. Look,...