Management Today articles from September 2003

Management Today archives from September 2003

EDITORIAL: Entrepreneur who turns the air blue.(Editorial)
September 15, 2003... There are more people out there who loathe Michael O'Leary than love him. The Ryanair boss is such a man of extremes - a ball of violent opinions and a derisive abuser of his competitors - that he comes over like a character from a Warner...

CONTRIBUTORS.
September 15, 2003... ALAN RUDDOCK: Alan Ruddock went to Dublin from his home in County Carlow to interview Michael O'Leary for MT's cover story. 'You cannot deny his genius,' he says. 'He's more manically committed to success than any chief exec I've met on these...

IN MY OPINION.(Editorial)
September 15, 2003... Chartered Management Institute companion Ian Harvey, chief executive of BTG, urges companies to forge a proper strategy on intellectual property. Natural selection takes care of chief executives who don't understand the difference between...

CUTTING ROOM.
September 15, 2003... Ford focuses on a new best-seller; spying potential of the camera-phone; why the poor live longer in penury; magic moments at Mach 2... Evan Davis at large. In the old TV sitcom Yes, Minister, Sir Humphrey had only to describe a new...

BRAIN FOOD: Ten ways to ... Manage the risk of job loss.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... 1 Keep all your outside contacts fresh 2 Get all the training you can 3 Migrate internally 4 Read industry journals 5 Update your CV 6 Register with headhunters 7 Talk to successful freelancers 8 Reduce your...

BRAIN FOOD: It just might work - Company-sans-frontieres.(Big Ideas Group)(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... The company-sans-frontieres is reality, thanks to the internet. Would you like access to a flood of new product ideas, for instance? The Big Ideas Group welcomes inventors into its web site and feeds vetted inspirations to corporate clients....

BRAIN FOOD: Unlikely managers - Dinner lady - St Francis RC Primary School, Ascot.(Brief Article)(Interview)
September 15, 2003... NAME: PATRICIA KELLAWAY WHEN DID YOU BECOME A MANAGER? Twenty-seven years ago. I keep my eye on three classes in the playground during the lunch hour, plus I spend 30 minutes inside every day helping the children with their reading. ...

BRAIN FOOD: Workplace rights - Age shall not wither them.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... The Government's consultation document on age discrimination heralds the most important employment law reform in a generation. From October 2006, employees will be able to bring tribunal age-bias claims with the prospect of unlimited...

BRAIN FOOD: Earning Curve - Schools.
September 15, 2003... John Kerr, chief executive, Edexcel ('01) pounds 158k Charles Clarke, Education Secretary, p.a. pounds 127k Doug McAvoy, general secretary, NUT, p.a. pounds 89,875 Headteacher, secondary school, p.a. up to pounds 65,676 Newly qualified...

BRAIN FOOD: Route to the top ... How to build deep client relationships.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... Think long-term. Deep client relationships are built over time and are difficult to dislodge; instant friendships can disappear just as quickly. Be thoughtful. Personal touches show you see them as more than just a client. Remembering...

BRAIN FOOD: Room service - Where Nicky Clarke stays.
September 15, 2003... FOR BUSINESS: Essex House is a great New York hotel. I've been staying there for a fair few years and the staff are unfailingly helpful. The managers greet me by name, and often upgrade me - a big bonus, as their suites are fabulous. It's an...

BRAIN FOOD: Speaking out - David Varney CHAIRMAN, MM02.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... Image-wise, David Varney doesn't have a lot going for him. With his bald pate and beard, he looks like a mad professor straight out of a Gerry Andersen puppet series. Not to worry, though. As chairman both of mmO2 and Business in the Community,...

BRAIN FOOD: John Ritblat is chairman and managing director of British Land - If I had to start again.
September 15, 2003... I've always thought it a miracle to have found my niche in real estate from the word go. In 1952, a wise uncle pointed out that the removal of the need for building licences after the war and the end of austerity would lead to a property boom;...

BRAIN FOOD: Are you suffering from ... Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... Sufferers of OCD typically return to the house seven times to check they've turned off the stove. OCD starts with an obsession ('I am contaminated', 'I am losing control') and leads to a compulsion such as checking, hoarding or counting....

BRAIN FOOD: Words-worth - Exit strategy.
September 15, 2003... Once upon a time, any executive talking about his exit strategy would have been shepherded away for a nice chat with the company doctor in a room with a comfy couch and no sharp objects. Exit strategies implied EXIT, the 1970s name of the...

THE HUMAN FACTOR: At the Bank of England, the FSA and the London Stock Exchange, new men are in charge - all very different from their predecessors.
September 15, 2003... It's back-to-school time and the City must get used to a new roster of prefects. Sir Edward George has left Threadneedle Street, intent on spending more time in his Cornish garden. Sir Howard Davies has left Canary Wharf and starts the academic...

STATE OF THE UNION: Bush has jettisoned the good-government principles that underpin his party. That offers the Democrats an opening, but will they exploit it?
September 15, 2003... George W Bush, charge his opponents, is jejune, swaggering, extreme, and inarticulate. If they stick to that songsheet, the president has little to worry about: after all, the Democrats would say that. But he does have a weakness: he's not a...

INSIDE OUT: Playing the 'lack of integrity' card won't be enough. The Tories need to develop an alternative vision - and it must address the matter of public services.
September 15, 2003... As the last Parliament slumbered towards the summer recess, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said something interesting and original. Yes, I have also doubted that such a thing was possible - but he did! He announced that it was his...

REALITY BITES: People at work typically want what those above them have. This desire to move up the pecking order is what motivates people to do a good job.
September 15, 2003... Many of you will have visited the cinema this summer to watch a large green man tearing up buildings. Although the science of The Hulk largely went over my head, I'm pretty sure that the biggest question of all - why does Dr Banner turn green...

TECHKNOW: Things to come ... Pelican planes.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... The US Army wants to be able to deploy five divisions anywhere in the world within a month, but it can't. Boeing is trying to make this possible. Flying pelicans skim the water's surface, exploiting an aerodynamic phenomenon called ground...

TECHKNOW: Tech talk.
September 15, 2003... Boomerang (n): Someone who quits (or gets fired) only to turn up in a different job in the same company a few months later. Leisure sickness (n): Cold, fever or other minor ailment that ignores the six months you've just spent hard at it...

TECHKNOW: Pushing the envelope - Digital preservation.
September 15, 2003... When William the Conqueror's clerics were compiling the Domesday Book in 1085, they created a definitive work of reference that still yields valuable insights nearly a thousand years on. Contrast that with the BBC's high-tech update of the...

TECHKNOW: Smart tools - Roberts RD1/.
September 15, 2003... WHAT IS IT? A cutting-edge portable digital radio. Best known for trad-looking leather trannies, Yorkshire-based Roberts is not afraid of the latest technology. Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) offers CD-quality sound free from crackle, hiss...

BOOKS: From fat cats to boss cats.(Book Review)
September 15, 2003... Despite their bad press since Enron, CEOs are still the linchpin of a sound company. Paul Judge hails a manual for leaders that rehabilitates the breed. Fat cats! Failures! Felons! Fraudsters! We all know about CEOs from the media. ...

BOOKS: On the bedside table of ... Mark Constantine, is chairman of Lush.
September 15, 2003... 'I'm reading the Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr. This is the true story of Luca Turin, a man who believed he had discovered how we smell things. We don't really understand yet how our sense of smell works. It's very interesting for me,...

BOOKS: Three of a kind ... Office netiquette for e-mail users.(Book Review)
September 15, 2003... INTERNET AND E-MAIL USE AND ABUSE; Clare Hogg; CIPD Good Practice; pounds 13.99 Intended to help your staff get the best out of their computers and the internet, this book covers areas such as security, legal issues, and internet access...

BOOKS: Cut from a different cloth.(THE HOUSE OF KLEIN)(Book Review)
September 15, 2003... THE HOUSE OF KLEIN; By Lisa Mars; Wiley pounds 17.50; MT price pounds 15.00 Calvin Klein's brilliant brand-management underpins this biography, which Maria Grachvogel suspects is more a fairytale than reality Design is a small part of...

BOOKS: For the thinking manager.(Book Review)
September 15, 2003... THE FUSION MANAGER; By Robert Heller; Profile pounds 14.9; MT price pounds 11.99 This is a guide that eschews fads and tackles the often paradoxical and perplexing everyday realities of leadership, says John Harvey-Jones. Every manager...

BOOKS: The book that shook David Scowsill, chief executive of Opodo.
September 15, 2003... 'There were a number of books I considered, but all of them were by the same author - Dr David Freemantle. I decided on his first book Superboss: The A-Z of Managing People Successfully, which was published in 1985 and later reissued as...

Keeping up with O'Leary.(Interview)
September 15, 2003... Ryanair's buccaneering boss dismisses his flag-carrying rivals with loud-mouthed contempt and isn't too polite about some of his passengers - which has won him many enemies. But it's hard to deny him credit for the spectacular success of the...

Politically bankrupt.
September 15, 2003... Labour and the Tories are heavily in debt. Who should bail them out? The cry of sleaze goes up when rich donors chip in, while proposals for state funding enrage the taxpayer - especially when the parties are so profligate at election time....

How to ditch the disservice culture.
September 15, 2003... Response management is a skill vital to winning and nurturing customers. IT gives companies the chance to meet demand efficiently - or to demonstrate an ineptitude that leaves prospects dangling online. David Butcher reports. A few weeks...

Terminal warfare or how the upstart Bloomberg overtook Reuters in 20 years.
September 15, 2003... For most of its 150-year history, Reuters has been the king of news and financial data. But now a brash young business from across the pond wants to snatch its British rival's crown. Chris Blackhurst reports. At Bloomberg in London, a...

THE MT INTERVIEW: Roger Holmes.
September 15, 2003... Inclusive and quiet, Marks & Spencer's boss may lack the bluster of a natural born retailer, but he has brought healthy profits and a sharper image for the venerable chain. Can the man who poached Vittorio Radice from Selfridges complete the...

COMING UP FAST: Cycle company with a virtual spin.
September 15, 2003... Steedman Bass and his partner run an entire bicycle company on their own. With all main functions outsourced, Strida is about as ethereal as a firm can get. Malcolm Wheatley reports. Birmingham-based Strida designs, manufactures and sells...

COMING UP FAST: Arnold Fulton, Fulton Umbrellas.
September 15, 2003... DECISIONS MY BEST... After graduating and spending three years with a firm of consulting engineers, I decided to start my own company. I worked on designing special-purpose machines, and I realised that machines could be used in the...

COMING UP FAST: letting staff go.
September 15, 2003... DILEMMA: What a grim day. Making good people redundant when you're fully aware of the dire jobs market is a miserable thing to have to do. It's hard to be 'hard'. A couple of them are so financially stretched that they may now have to sell...

COMING UP FAST: Still riding high.
September 15, 2003... Four years ago, husband and wife Shaun and Janet Blackburn set up shop in their Cumbrian village selling saddles, jodhpurs and everything else for horse and rider. 'We decided to trade online in 2000,' says Shaun, 'as some of our competitors...

COMING UP FAST: Stressbuster - The party animal.
September 15, 2003... Networking nerves affect most of us at some point. Preparations can make the dreaded drinks reception much less stressful. SELECT YOUR SMALL TALK. Scour the papers and journals the night before for topical conversation starters. ...

COMING UP FAST: Young Meteors - Russell Attwood - Call centre technology.(Brief Article)
September 15, 2003... After 10 years as a sales employee, Russell Attwood felt it was time to set up on his own. He'd spent five years working in call centres and used that experience to launch Call Centre Technology in 1997, a company providing technology, data and...

WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?
September 15, 2003... I DON'T WANT TO FOLLOW IN MY FATHER'S FOOTSTEPS Q: For years my father has been grooming me to take over the family manufacturing firm. I've been working there quite happily, but I've realised that my real passion is for law and I want to...

FIRST CLASS COACH.
September 15, 2003... I'm making a pretty good job of managing my direct reports but don't have much contact with my boss and her boss. Despite the fact that I'm performing well, recently I've been criticised for failing to manage upwards. Does this matter and, if...

WEAK AT THE TOP: John Weak's diary.
September 15, 2003... MONDAY There's a new graduate recruit in marketing. We call him the Embryo because his head seems much larger than his body and he smells slightly of amniotic fluid (I've noticed the women in the office surreptitiously sniffing him)....