Management Today articles from October 2004

Management Today archives from October 2004

Editorial: Pay-off time for founders.(Editorial)
October 7, 2004... If ever you wanted proof that there's more to business than just the money, have a look at our 'Sell it off - Buy it back' feature this month. It shows just what an emotional marathon running a company can be, especially if you founded it in...

Contributors.
October 7, 2004... LORD BIRT: Any regrets? That was the burning question MT put to Lord Birt, former DG of the BBC. Read Brainfood's 'If I had to start again' to find out what he said - no doubt his words will be scrutinised by Beeb execs. Lord Birt is now...

MT extras.(Management Today)
October 7, 2004... There's more to MT than meets the eye: as well as our own events, awards and special publications, we're partnering with some of Britain's leading business brands to encourage enterprise and celebrate success. OCTOBER: RSA Day of...

In my opinion: Chartered Management Institute.(succession planning)
October 7, 2004... Chartered Management Institute Companion Alison Carnwath, chairman of Vitec Group, considers the challenge of choosing leaders. Company boards in Britain inevitably spend time considering succession issues for the chief executive. The...

Brain Food: Ten ways to ... celebrate success.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
October 7, 2004... 1. Tell everyone why their part was vital 2. Talk through what went right 3. Arrange a professional photograph of the team 4. Promote people while they're confident 5. Plan for more success 6. Publicise the success internally 7....

Brain Food: It'll never fly - the internet.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... A lot of weird techies talking to each other through their computers? Wouldn't normal people just pick up the phone or write a letter? Originally conceived in 1962 as 'the Galactic Network', the internet was intended to be a secure way for...

Brain Food: Unlikely managers - Master of the Hunt.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... ADAM WAUGH: SOUTH & WEST WILTS HUNT When did you become a manager? In 1995, when I became master of the New Forest foxhounds. What does management mean to you? My prime task is to manage the fox population in my hunting area,...

Brain Food: Earning Curve: Engineering.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Sir Peter Mason, CEO, Amec (2003) pounds 1.021m Aerospace engineer, Nasa, p.a. pounds 47k-pounds 72k Chief chemical engineer, p.a. pounds 55k-pounds 65k Principal civil engineer, p.a. pounds 30k-pounds 36k BT field service engineer, p.a....

Brain Food: Workplace Rights - Disputed territory.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Controversial new rules for dealing with employment disputes came into force on 1 October that encourage employers and workers to resolve disagreements by following basic procedures for disciplinary and grievance matters. In essence, the issue...

Brain Food: Look after the pennies - pushing the envelope.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Who said size doesn't matter? For a cost-conscious global overnight courier firm like Federal Express, every millimetre of its specially designed envelopes counts. The smaller and lighter, the better. The size and makeup of its envelopes come...

Brain Food: Your route to the top - How to make good people great.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Work with each person in your team. Clarify on an individual basis the differences between doing a job well and excelling. Set a good example. Become mindful of your own behaviour and remember that your team will use you as their model of...

The MT Diary: Howard Davies.(Management Today)(China travel)
October 7, 2004... Redwood at large; old familiar China; the Abbey bellwether; an OFR firms can't refuse. The double reshuffles in September did not shift the tectonic plates of British politics. Alan Milburn's return, to spend more time with the government,...

Brain Food: Words-worth to liaise.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Now that no-one likes to give orders any more, managers have to liaise. You can 'liaise with' people and you can 'liaise between' them. No-one ever liaised against anybody, which makes it an ideal verb for the haven of peace and tranquility...

Brain Food: Are you suffering from situational intimacy?(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Isn't it funny how the new colleague with the irritating habit of repeating himself every 20 minutes, a drool and some personal hygiene problems, starts to become positively funny, actually hilarious, a mere two weeks later? Situational...

Brain Food: We'd love that job - TEFL teacher - Jonathan Osman, Shane English School, Shanghai.(teaching English as a foreign language)(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... What do you do? I teach English to Chinese kids and adults. How did you get the job? I've taken a year out from my job training restaurant staff in the UK to travel. When I was at home, I found myself day-dreaming all day long about wanting...

Brain Food: Remember this.(famous quotes)(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... 'A (success) = X (work) + Y (play) + Z (keep your mouth shut)' ALBERT EINSTEIN SAID IT 'Management works in the system; leadership works on the system' STEPHEN R COVEY SAID IT.

Brain Food: Speaking out - Professor Michael Porter, Harvard Business School.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... If you are introduced as 'The World's Number One Business Thinker', you'd better be good. Michael Porter started well: 'Thank you for that introduction, chairman; you read out what I wrote very well.' That raised a laugh, as did his little joke...

Brain Food: How to get ahead in sales.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... 1. An outstanding sales person will have exceptional negotiating skills, an ability to think on their feet and will always listen to a buyer's needs. 2. Know your product inside out. You might be the smoothest sales person that stalked the...

Brain Food: The Slogan Doctor - HSBC: The world's local bank.(Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd.)(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Banks make all sorts of promises: they like to say yes, they put our interests first and they like to listen. HSBC is not like that. It wants to impress us with its global competence. The golfing dramas and eel-swallowing mishaps in its...

Brain Food: Lord Birt - If I had to start again.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... If I could have my time over again, I would make exactly the same call on all the big decisions. I don't have any regrets about the forks in the road I've taken. Joining the BBC was the beginning of what was a very painful period in my life,...

Brain Food: How he made his pile - Paul Sykes, Property developer.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Who is he? Yorkshire property tycoon turned anti-EU campaigner, worth about pounds 500 million. How did he make his millions? Written off at school, Sykes soon proved his teachers wrong by making a fortune selling old bus parts to the Far...

Brain Food: Us and them - The Czech Republic.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... Prague has joined Paris and Rome as a must-visit European city, and it's this boom in tourism that helps explain the country's new-found prosperity, fuelled since the Velvet Revolution of 1989 by a rapid expansion of trade, catering, repair and...

Brain Food: Crash course in ... disposing of a brand.
October 7, 2004... There are too many brands in your portfolio, and it has been decreed that at least one has to go. How will you sell and get the best price? Avoid a fire sale. If you've just acquired a brand and the Competition Commission orders you to...

Brain Food: MT Masterclass - Performance management.(Brief Article)
October 7, 2004... What is it? Nothing could be simpler than managing people to get better performance out of them, right? If that were true, there would be no UK productivity problems and a million consultants would be out of work. Effective performance...

Brain Food: David Soskin - Cheapflights, chief executive of the internet travel site.
October 7, 2004... MY BEST... Leaving my job in investment banking to take the helm of Cheapflights was my best decision. I'd been working at ABN Amro in mergers and acquisitions. The life of an investment banker can be quite compelling, yet when I went to...

Brain Food: Behind the spin - The DTI.(Department of Trade and Industry)
October 7, 2004... THE DILEMMA The Department of Trade and Industry has been attacked by all political sides recently, with the Government, the Opposition and the Lib Dems advocating a culling of jobs at the government department. The level of cutbacks and...

Bosses who want it all.(Lord Kirkham and Tony Pidgley)
October 7, 2004... A founder wanting to buy out shareholders makes them all the keener to hold on. Lord Kirkham and Tony Pidgley come over as self-made men and proud of it. Through their own labours, they have built thriving businesses and made themselves...

The political paradox.(Tony Blair)
October 7, 2004... The skills required to win power rarely come with those needed to wield it effectively. It is an irony Marx would enjoy (Groucho, not Karl). While corporate AGMs are becoming noisier, more conflicted affairs, the annual seaside meetings of...

Techno Life.(Tariq Idris)
October 7, 2004... A dentist specialising in cosmetic and reconstructive work, Tariq Idris relies on his tablet PC and Palm organiser to help him split his week between Chester and London's Harley Street. An entrepreneur at heart, he designed a brand-new type of...

Books: The burden pulling us down.(IOU: The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 7, 2004... This is more than just an angry rant about the third world's huge debt burden - it suggests practical proposals to solving an intractable problem, says Francis Beckett. This book should finally establish Noreena Hertz's position as...

Books: Three of a kind - A sporting chance of leadership.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 7, 2004... Mind Games; Jeff Grout & Sarah Perrin; Capstone; pounds 14.99 Life is a mind game and the people best equipped to play it are sports champions, according to the book's authors. Interviews with international sports stars and coaches are...

Books: What has luck got to do with winning?(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 7, 2004... Confidence is all in business, and this original book explains how it can make or break a company's fortunes, says Ros Jay. Confidence Rosabeth Moss Kanter Random House pounds 20 MT price pounds 17 To order, visit...

Books: Defeating those golf course demons.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 7, 2004... This invaluable book explains the secret of the swing and will cure even the most perfect slice, as Clive Hollick discovered. The Swing Factory Steve Gould and Dave Wilkinson, with William Sieghart Simon & Schuster pounds 25 MT...

Books: The book that shook Simon Thurley.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 7, 2004... Published in 1978, Mark Girouard's phenomenally influential Life in the English Country House: A social and architectural history was possibly the most successful book on architectural history ever written. It changed the way people...

BT battles on.
October 7, 2004... Faced with a traditional business in decline, BT's CEO Ben Verwaayen (opposite) has fought to bring purpose to the floundering giant. But is it just running to stand still? Andrew Saunders reports on the company's unending struggle. This...

How to manage your boss.
October 7, 2004... Trying to keep the boss sweet is a time-consuming business, but it helps if you know what's coming. Stefan Stern's non-exhaustive guide will help you master your relationship with the one who must be obeyed. No relationship at work is more...

Sell it off - buy it back.
October 7, 2004... Some entrepreneurs sell their company, watch it decline and buy it back, usually at a knockdown price - but it's not always about the money, says Dominic Prince. Richard Branson did it when he floated Virgin in the 1980s and then took it...

The MT Interview: Martin Broughton.(Interview)
October 7, 2004... A lifer at BAT, he rose from auditor to chairman via CEO, in which role he pushed up the tobacco giant's market share worldwide. Not bad for a non-smoker. Diplomatic, understated yet a good mixer, he brings an air of considered coolness to BA's...

Sponsored Feature: A Round Table Discussion - Winning the talent war.(employee development)(Panel Discussion)
October 7, 2004... The new Investors in People standard presents a timely reminder that your people and your productivity are inextricably linked. MT's round table at Claridges discussed how employee development can make a difference to the bottom line. ...

MT Survey of surveys: Credit cards.
October 7, 2004... We British are profligate wielders of plastic compared with our EC counterparts. It's a market free-for-all for issuers, which suffer from both card-sharp fraud and savvy customers, says Lucy Aitken. The lion's share - pounds 827 billion -...

MT business travel: Frequent flyer Mike Butler's guide to Helsinki.
October 7, 2004... HOW TO GET THERE: British Airways and Finnair both fly three times a day from Heathrow. The flight is just over two and a half hours, and Helsinki is two hours ahead of the UK. AIRPORT TO TOWN: I take a taxi, which takes 25 minutes and...

MT Business Travel: Room service - Where Nick Starr stays ..(Wyndham Hotel, New York)(Principe de la Paz, Aranjuez, Spain)(Hotel Review)
October 7, 2004... FOR BUSINESS: About once a year, I'm in New York for theatre business - most recently, for the National Theatre production of Jumpers. I like the Wyndham, on West 58th Street. It's a healthy 10 blocks' walk from the theatre district and...

MT Business Travel: On the road.
October 7, 2004... Vauxhall is not known for glamorous wheels, but the Tigra 1.4 is an attractive convertible. Mildew. Mould. Water pooling on your carpets. These were just a few of the problems lying in wait for the one-time owners of 1960s sports cars, as...

What's Your Problem?
October 7, 2004... Q: I have moved to a new job and am shocked at the inefficiency and wastefulness of my new department. It doesn't seem to be accountable to anyone, and so the department head is lazy, often drunk for half the day, abuses his expenses account...

First-Class Coach.(change management)
October 7, 2004... Q: I've been brought in to do a new role, making this traditional organisation more commercial. I'm used to succeeding through my own efforts, but my boss has told me I'll need to carry people with me if I am to succeed. How do I go about that?...

MT Business Lifeforms: The dot.bomber - Emma Browne, co-founder of urbkit.com.
October 7, 2004... At 32, Emma Browne is already a woman living in the shadow of her former working self. In a whitewashed house perched on the North Devon coast, she lives a life pared down to the essentials. Looking after a few animals, a nascent relationship...