Management Today articles from November 2004

Management Today archives from November 2004

Contributors.(miscellaneous news)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... COLIN BYRNE Weber Shandwick's chief executive relished the chance to get his mitts on a copy of Ronald Alsop's new book, The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation, to review for MT. Byrne enjoyed it so much that he chucked the vintage...

You too could be a volunteer.(Voluntary Services Overseas)
November 5, 2004... Volunteering is fast becoming the buzzword of the minute. Last year, the Treasury and Home Office launched 'The Corporate Challenge', which seeks to encourage business to set up volunteering schemes. And, more recently, Digby Jones of the CBI...

In my Opinion: Prosperous people need to be encouraged to live in the areas of regeneration.
November 5, 2004... Chartered Management Institute Companion George Iacobescu, Canary Wharf Group CEO, looks at the challenges in creating new communities. The Government plans to create in the Thames Gateway 'a destination of choice for living and working...

The MT diary.
November 5, 2004... DTI ripe for demolition; accountants unsettled; Big Apple gridlock; Koizumi pitches in. As the election approaches, are vultures circling above the Department of Trade and Industry? The permanent secretary, Robin Young, a canny Whitehall...

Brain Food: Ten ways to ... make the office fun.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
November 5, 2004... 1. Pay a decent wage 2. Solve process nightmares 3. Have approachable leaders 4. Let people have flexitime 5. Communicate well at all levels 6. Get rid of status symbols 7. Reward and recognise effort 8. Mix men and women 9. Don't...

Brain Food: It'll never fly - Alternative therapy.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... You have a headache or perhaps you're just feeling a bit under the weather. Why not try a spot of Vortex Healing? Or perhaps you're up for something a bit more hands-on, like Colon Hydrotherapy, Leech Therapy or Brain Respiration? To pay...

Brain Food: Unlikely managers - Bonfire Night Organiser.(Brief Article)(Interview)
November 5, 2004... Jack Adam Head of Security and Events, Wandsworth Borough Council When did you become a manager? Nine and a half years ago, when I left the army and started work as event manager here. What does management mean to you? It's...

Brain Food: Earning Curve - Photography.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
November 5, 2004... Mark Getty, chairman, Getty Images, earnings ('03) pounds 330k Helmut Newton, Sie Kommen print, at auction pounds 64.3k Mario Testino, day rate, pounds 33.3k Top UK photographer, editorial, per day, up to pounds 1,000 Experienced photolab...

Brain Food: Workplace rights - Poll position.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... The next election may be a mere twinkle in Tony's eye, but machinations over his third-term manifesto are already well under way. In particular, union barons appear to have secured major concessions on employment rights. Plans include...

Brain Food: Look after the pennies - Many a slip.(safety measures for restaurant chefs)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Kitchen workers are particularly susceptible to injury. Boiling pans, sharp knives and slippery floors make their environment especially hazardous. In the US, it is estimated that every time a restaurant employee slips, falls and takes injury...

Brain Food: Your route to the top - To volunteer or not?(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Look out for opportunities. Those who never volunteer rarely make it to the top; equally, those who sign up for the wrong things tend not to make it at all. Establish the facts. Find out as much as you can before you commit: what is...

Brain Food: Words-Worth - Passionate.(passion as a part of company culture)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... How enthusiastic are you about your firm's products and services? Very? Sorry, that's not enough. These days you need to be in love with them, to be 'passionate'. Many companies have embraced passion. Dog-lovers Churchill are 'passionate about...

Brain Food: Are you suffering from - Male Navigational Syndrome.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... This is a familiar problem. No matter how badly you are lost and how late you are going to be, you won't ask for directions. This syndrome also applies to other things in life. Why ask a colleague to help if you can get on and fail all by...

Brain Food: We'd love that job - Professional Musician.(violinists' interview)(Brief Article)(Interview)
November 5, 2004... Tasmin Little, Solo Concert Violinist What do you do? I practise for four hours almost every day. I give up to 65 concerts a year, performing with the world's best orchestras. This year, I've performed in Europe, Japan and America....

Brain Food: Remember this.(quotes)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... 'You may have to fight a battle more than once to win' MARGARET THATCHER SAID IT 'What good is money if it can't inspire terror in your fellow man?' MR BURNS, THE SIMPSONS SAID IT

Brain Food: Speaking Out - Ray Mallon, Mayor of Middlesbrough.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Mallon may have his faults, but being humble isn't one of them. Who can forget his robust 'Robocop' TV appearances when he brought zero tolerance to Teesside, a policy that eventually set him against some of his Cleveland Police bosses? He...

Brain Food: How to get ahead in - Entrepreneurship.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... 1. Have a clear vision of what your business will be, and believe in it. If you pick an idea on gut feeling, do your research. Only one in 100 ideas are really successful. 2. Hire people who are better than you and whose strengths are your...

Brain Food: The Slogan Doctor - Royal Mail: With us, it's personal.(Royal Mail Group PLC)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... With competition on its way, the Royal Mail is capitalising on our affection for its army of parcel-passers and the nice surprises they bring. The slogan suggests that being in the Royal Mail is more vocation than job. The commercial, also...

Brain Food: If I had to start again - George Cox.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... I wouldn't do much differently, and that's not being smug about it. I'm sure I've made lots of mistakes down the line, but none of them were big. Inevitably, you can look back on things and say that if you'd pursued any of them for longer and...

Brain Food: How she made her pile - Madonna Ciccone, Pop Star.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... Who is she? The most successful female artist ever, and thought to be worth an estimated pounds 350 million. Married to mockney film director Guy Ritchie, she has a pounds 7 million Mayfair home and an pounds 8 million mansion in Beverly Hills....

Brain Food: Us and Them - Indonesia.(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... The fourth most populous country in the world is also the largest archipelagic state - 17,508 islands rich in petroleum, tin and natural gas. Economic development has been stalling, due to recent acts of terrorism, endemic corruption and a weak...

Brain Food: Crash course in ... Bidding for resources.
November 5, 2004... There's a red-hot project your team is dying to get under way, but you've got to win the backing of the top brass and persuade your financial director to commit the funding. Treasury is keeping a tight rein on budgets, and others are competing...

Brain Food: MT Masterclass - The Learning Organisation.(Management Today)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... What is it? According to MIT's Peter Senge (author of The Fifth Discipline), a learning organisation is one 'where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking...

Brain Food: Alison Richards, The Pier - Founder and MD of the high street home furnishings store.(managing director)(Brief Article)
November 5, 2004... MY BEST... We expanded rapidly in 1999 and overstretched ourselves. My best decision at that time was to increase our costs rather than make cutbacks. In the short term, it meant that our results were much worse, but long-term we are now...

Brain Food: Behind the spin - Walt Disney.(Walt Disney Co.)
November 5, 2004... THE DILEMMA The House of Mouse has got its knickers in a twist. The theme park to sports cable TV network group has had an annus horribilis involving public criticism of long-time chief exec Michael Eisner and his ongoing spats with...

Abandon this charade.(company pension plans)
November 5, 2004... For employees, the concept of the company pension is as outdated as a job for life. There is an impending pensions crisis. Industry has long known about it, and been forced into costly attempts at avoiding action, and now even the most...

People in the equation.
November 5, 2004... Little evidence has been found to link employment practice and performance. There are three things that everyone who has not been living in a cave for the past three decades knows for certain. Flared trousers always come back into fashion...

Techno life.(Mark Christopher)
November 5, 2004... Six years ago, Mark Christophers dropped out of corporate life as a venture capitalist to found the West Cornwall Pasty Company with a bunch of old snowboarding mates from his schooldays. Now he spends his time travelling the country, making...

Books: Your most priceless asset.(The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation)(Book Review)
November 5, 2004... A distinctive US journalistic style shines through this engrossing book on how to protect a corporate reputation and the consequence of a bad one, says Colin Byrne. Putting the finishing touches to this review in an airport lounge, I...

Books: Three of a kind - How to turn your team into winners.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 5, 2004... Management Teams; R Meredith Belbin; Elsevier pounds 16.99 The eminence grise of team theory, Belbin provides a practical guide using his own research and case studies, as well as supplying readers with a background on the study of teams, a...

Books: Female wiles in a macho marketplace.(The Naked Truth)(Book Review)
November 5, 2004... The author offers much evidence of the hostility women face at work, but she is full of contradictions, finds Richard Reeves. She wears miniskirts, she has long blonde hair and a great big smile, and she sparkles. She even dares to talk...

Books: Intelligent advice for those who do business abroad.(Cultural Intelligence)(When in Rome or Rio or Riyadh)(Book Review)
November 5, 2004... Contrasting books on how to impress foreigners are reviewed by Julian Birkinshaw, one offering a personal development perspective, the other encyclopedic detail. We have all experienced the uncertainty and trepidation that goes with a...

Books: Homespun truths have their own limitations.(The Rules of Management)(Book Review)
November 5, 2004... This book tries to explain simply how to manage, but, says Paul Gibbons, simple has two meanings and both apply here. Management is fiendishly complex. Humans are mercurial, obstinate and irrational. Their social systems develop their own...

The MT Interview: Todd Stitzer.(Interview)
November 5, 2004... The first foreign boss of Cadbury Schweppes, Todd Stitzer is a regular, all-American guy in charge of a very British business. But as a go-getter with a social conscience, he's really from the same mould as the firm's Quaker founding fathers....

Putting the Bling in UK gambling.
November 5, 2004... Shaken up by the advent of easy-access online betting, the gaming industry is now about to be swept along in a gold rush as the new Gambling Bill brings Las Vegas-style casinos to Britain's big cities. Who stands to win in this betting...

Execs on a Mission.(Voluntary Service Overseas)
November 5, 2004... VSO, MT's new partner charity, is leading a radical change in the field of volunteer recruitment, as it targets middle managers for its overseas placements and builds partnerships with big employers. Rebecca Hoar finds out how firms are getting...

Management Writing Awards 2004: Author! Author!
November 5, 2004... MT presents the winners of the first MCA Management Writing Awards. Although there are many writing awards, few specifically celebrate management writing. This year, the Management Consultancies Association, in association with MT,...

British consultants lead the charge.
November 5, 2004... Corporate America may have invented management consultancy as we now know it, but with the booming popularity of outsourcing, firms on this side of the Atlantic are forging past their US rivals. Yet the traditional strategic advisers are...

Being Roman Abramovich.
November 5, 2004... Famous in Britain for his big-spending proprietorship of Chelsea FC, the Russian entrepreneur remains an elusive personality whose background is little known here. Dominic Midgley, co-author of Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere, uncovers...

MT Survey of Surveys: Venture Capital.
November 5, 2004... The late-90s dot.com glory days of start-ups may be long gone, but VC firms are still funding new businesses on both sides of the pond - to the tune of EUR27bn in Europe alone. David Bain reports. For most of us, the dot.com boom seems a...

MT business travel: Frequent Flyer - Steve Broughton's guide to Singapore.
November 5, 2004... HOW TO GET THERE I prefer to fly with Singapore Airlines. Direct flights from Heathrow to Changi airport take about 13 hours. In business class, it's possible to 'book the cook' - order your food before you fly. AIRPORT TO TOWN I...

MT business travel: Room Service - Where Christian Rucker stays ..(Management Today)(Knightsbridge Hotel)(Le Royal Meridien Baan Taling Ngam)
November 5, 2004... FOR BUSINESS: I live in Shropshire and visit London regularly for work. I pretty much always stay at the Knightsbridge Hotel in Beaufort Gardens. It's a boutique hotel owned by Firmdale Hotels. I love it; it's very cool and fun to stay in. It's...

MT business travel: On the road.
November 5, 2004... Revving to 7,300 rpm, the new Audi A6's engine is a game ally, but the ride is thumpingly inconsistent. Does a car with a bold, confident grille make its owner feel the same way? Audi likes to think so, its latest models projecting a...

What's your Problem?
November 5, 2004... Q: I've really screwed up. My company division has been losing money for years, but with some clever accounting and a nod and a wink from our company accountant, I've managed to hide the loss. Now he's leaving and our new and ambitious...

First-Class Coach.(requesting to work part-time)
November 5, 2004... Q: For several months, I have considered changing my working hours to go part-time. I know that my boss doesn't approve of such an idea, and I need to find a way to convince him that it is the best solution for me and that my productivity will...

MT Business Lifeforms: The personnel manager - Nigel Mayes, group HR director, PFIL.
November 5, 2004... Hey, ho! It's time for another of Nigel's initiatives. No-one's quite sure what the substance of this particular programme is, although it has been exhaustively documented in a beautiful Technicolor presentation pack twice the weight of the...