Management Today articles from September 2004

Management Today archives from September 2004

Grabbing a slice of risk pie.(security business, opportunities in Iraq)
September 1, 2004... UK private security firms have piled into Iraq in search of lucrative contracts. Three years after 11 September 2001, our lives are now increasingly influenced by what the Home Secretary refers to as 'the insecurity agenda'. This is not an...

Contributors.
September 1, 2004... MARK LASSWELL New York-based Lasswell is MT's newest editor at large - our man on the other side of the pond. He reviews two big tomes on Empire USA: Niall Ferguson's Colossus and Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire, finding one a...

In my Opinion: Chartered Management Institute.
September 1, 2004... Chartered Management Institute companion Sir Gulam Noon, chairman of Noon Products, offers three vital ingredients for a successful enterprise. It is just 15 years since a family business called Noon Products was set up. We began with only...

The MT Diary: Howard Davies.
September 1, 2004... Marshall, a class act to follow; tough job for IoD successor; Butler bikes back to Oxford. 'Doors to the manual and cross-check' was the instruction to security staff on the doors of the Banqueting House in Whitehall for Colin Marshall's...

Brain Food: Ten ways to... Give up E-Mail.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... 1. If it really matters, go and talk to them 2. Rediscover the power of a phone call 3. Use hand-written notes 4. Practise hands-off management 5. Have a permanent out-of-office auto-reply 6. Don't e-mail those you can see from your...

Brain Food: It'll never fly - The Urban 4x4.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... A recent survey has shown that just one in eight 4x4 drivers in the UK have taken their jeeps off-road. Why so few? Because they prefer to keep their petrol-guzzling beasts in the tarmacked confines of the city. It's more 'Let's zip to Harvey...

Brain Food: Unlikely Managers - Careers Adviser.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Dinah Langley - Head of Careers, King's College London, University of London Careers Service When did you become a manager? In 1986, when I was put in charge of all the main administration systems at the careers service. What does...

Brain Food: Earning Curve - Broadcasting.(Illustration)
September 1, 2004... BBC's licence fee revenue, p.a. pounds 2.8bn Carol Vorderman, TV presenter, p.a. pounds 3m James Murdoch, CEO, BSkyB, p.a. pounds 750k Michael Grade, chairman, BBC, p.a. pounds 81k TV jingle writer, per minute of music pounds 100...

Brain Food: Workplace Rights - Disability Obligations.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... There are estimated to be about 8.7 million people with disabilities in the UK, representing 15% of the population. Next month, their rights under the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) will be boosted in various ways, placing new...

Brain Food: Look after the Pennies - Cheeseparing Chief.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... When Atlantic City pizza boss 'Big' Dave Ostrander was asked by a cost-conscious colleague whether his staff should be free-throwing the cheese onto the pizzas or pre-measuring it, he put the technique to the test. But results showed that...

Brain Food: Your Route to the Top - How to praise.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Do it often. Five times a day minimum (like fruit and veg); 25 times would be even better. Spread it around your team or colleagues to avoid a sense of favourites. Remember, it's for their benefit, not yours. This will make it more...

Brain Food: Words-Worth - Team V Staff.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... The chief executive of a pub chain was talking recently about his plans to improve things for 'team' members. 'We don't call them staff,' he said. Why not? Both words are flattering rather than accurate. Originally, a staff was a length of...

Brain Food: We'd love that job - Marine Biologist.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Martin Attrill - Professor in Marine Ecology, University of Plymouth What do you do? I teach, giving lectures to undergraduates on the deep sea and coral reefs. I'm also working on an EU project on the destruction of the region's...

Brain Food: Are You suffering from - Status Income Disequilibrium.
September 1, 2004... You have the same degree as your friends, holiday in the same places and go to the same restaurants. But when you leave to return home, you head off in a used VW, while your friends take a five-minute taxi ride home (where a Maserati is parked...

Brain Food: Remember This.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... 'Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning' - BILL GATES SAID IT 'When the well's dry, we know the worth of water' - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SAID IT.

Brain Food: Speaking Out - Sir Terry Leahy, CEO, Tesco.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... What is Leahy for? By that I don't mean to imply that he's useless Clearly, as head of Britain's leading food retailer he is highly capable. But what does he really believe in? Giving the Marketing Society's annual lecture, he had a perfect...

Brain Food: How To Get Ahead in - Accountancy.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... 1 Ambitious undergraduates should apply to the 'Big Four' - Ernst & Young, PwC, KPMG and Deloitte & Touche - for a training contract. Pick the firm whose personality best suits your own. 2 You don't have to be a graduate. Students with good...

Brain Food: The Slogan Doctor - Nike: Just do it.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... What did you think when you first saw 'Just do it'? Here's how Nike's website describes the slogan's impact: 'It became both universal and intensely personal. It spoke of sports. It invited dreams. It was a call to action, a refusal to hear...

Brain Food: Sir Gerry Robinson - If I had to start again..(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... There aren't many things that you plan. I certainly didn't in any way plan a career. At 13, I was going to be a priest and went to a seminary, and if there was one thing that I would change, I probably wouldn't have gone. By the time I was 17,...

Brain Food: How he made his pile - Steven Spielberg, Film Director/Producer.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Who is he? The man who made Jaws, Indiana Jones and ET. Dubbed the 'president of cinema', he co-founded DreamWorks SKG in 1994 and is worth pounds 1.1 billion. How did he make his millions? Apparently, the young Spielberg got noticed by...

Brain Food: Us and Them - Venezuela.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Venezuela ranks sixth in world oil reserves, possessing 75 billion barrels of the black stuff. Oil accounts for about 30% of GDP, 80% of export earnings and more than 50% of government operating revenues. So the national strike of December...

Brain Food: Crash Course in... Integrating after a merger.
September 1, 2004... A merger would double your clout in the market - and your headcount. But how are you going to get all those people singing from the same hymnsheet, and in harmony? Have a single unifying plan. 'You don't want to have one integration plan...

Brain Food: MT Masterclass - Authenticity.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... What is it? Tired of sly, ironic advertising, dishonest management speak and bogus corporate values? You'll be in the market for a bit of authenticity. The idea, says Neil Crofts of the Authentic Business consultancy, is to make a living...

Brain Food: Decisions - David Richards - Prodrive - Chairman of the International Motorsport and Auto Group.
September 1, 2004... MY BEST... I was racing with Ford when I won the World Rally Championship in 1981. It was the first time I'd won it, and the conventional thing to do would have been to carry on rallying and make hay out of the win for the next few years....

Brain Food: Behind The Spin - Eurotunnel.
September 1, 2004... THE DILEMMA For any original UK investors, the pitifully poor performance of Eurotunnel must be painful. Looking back to 1994, the free trip under the Channel for new shareholders must seem like the only worthwhile return on their...

Hold-up in bank deals.
September 1, 2004... Financial journalists owe a debt of gratitude to Emilio Botin. Nothing beats a protracted bid saga for seeing the City pages through the summer holiday season. There had been high hopes that a sustained tussle between Marks & Spencer and Philip...

My right to over-work.
September 1, 2004... All things considered, we live in a liberal society. Of course, there is a justifiable and proper clamour over issues such as national identity cards and curbs on smoking cigarettes and smacking innocents But so long as we don't harm others, we...

Techno life.(gadgets of a globe trotter)
September 1, 2004... As chief technology officer for enterprise software giant SAP, SHAI AGASSI positively bristles with the latest mobile gear - including Blackberry, multiple mobiles and a tablet PC - to keep him in touch and productive for the 200 days a year he...

Books: American dream machine.(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Uncle Sam must behave like a proper liberal imperialist, argues one analysis; the other is a fulmination. Mark Lasswell reads clashing accounts of US overseas policy. Though America behaved in the 19th century with imperial greed, its...

Books: Three of a Kind - Define Your Business Terms.(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Oxford Dictionary of Business; Pallister and Isaacs (editors); OUP pounds 8.99; Put together by two editors and 15 contributors, this book means business. Alphabetical entries are short and to the point, and number about 6,500. The emphasis is...

Books: Cognitive therapy for sick companies.(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... The author uses the mental health analogy to diagnose firms that fail employees. Does he have a cure? Keith Weed reports. Former Unilever CEO Sir Michael Perry once said: 'Our top three priorities are first, innovation; second, innovation;...

Books: All play and no work is good for the soul.(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... This 'manifesto for a different way of living' is ambitious, but will businesses be able to harvest the fruits of creative playfulness, wonders Neil Mullarkey. I work with businesspeople using improvisational theatre to hone their creative...

The MT interview: Paul Walsh.(Interview)
September 1, 2004... As the boss of the dominant drinks company Diageo, he lives in interesting times, with new markets opening up overseas but a backlash against the easy availability of alcohol to the young and the yobbish. A core-focus apostle, he has...

The Business of Terror.
September 1, 2004... Three years on from 9/11, the terrorist threat persists, a War on Terror is being waged and the troubles in Iraq show few signs of abating. But one person's risk is another's opportunity, and for the private protection and security industry,...

Naked ambition and how to get it.
September 1, 2004... There's no denying that it's powerful stuff, but can you grow it? Can you take your personal drive down to the career gym and bench-press your long-term goals? Rhymer Rigby examines the climbing instinct - or lack of it. Who among us has...

Saving Wales.
September 1, 2004... The aim is to turn Wales from a post-industrial backwater into a haven for the knowledge economy. But can Rhodri Morgan's old-style planning breathe new fire into the dragon? Stephen Cook reports. Somewhere between the plastic meal and the...

I showed them the future and they ignored it.
September 1, 2004... Long-term social, technological and demographic changes can wreck the largest of corporate ships, and firms spend big money on trend-spotters to try to dodge icebergs. So why do they end up hitting so many of them? Martin Hayward thinks he...

Born-again Bikers.
September 1, 2004... For competitive male execs of a certain age, cycling is the latest antidote to mid-life crisis - and the worse the physical punishment, the better, reports EMMA DE VITA. It's official: bicycles are the new black. To Britain's monied and...

Survey of Surveys: E-Commerce.
September 1, 2004... Investors still fight shy of web-based traders, yet e-tailers are racing ahead, led by the search-based sites. The only halters are technical glitches and the slow takeup of broadband. Lucy Aitken reports. If Adam Smith were around today,...

MT Business Travel: Frequent Flyer - Ron Santiago's guide to Madrid.
September 1, 2004... Where to go, what to drive, how to get there, where to stay, what to do, how much to spend. HOW TO GET THERE - I prefer BA from Heathrow to Madrid's Barajas airport. I use Iberia as a back-up. The flight's about two hours. AIRPORT TO...

MT Business Travel: On The Road.(Product/Service Evaluation)
September 1, 2004... The MG ZT 260 is a genuine sports saloon - and you don't pay in refinement either. Years back, when British Leyland was headline news, the arrival of the MG ZT 260 would have inspired hallelujahs across the land. But in its much reduced...

MT Business Travel: Room Service - Where Glen Drury stays..(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... FOR BUSINESS - The Sofitel Le Faubourg hotel in Paris is my favourite business hotel. It's the small things that set a hotel apart, and Le Faubourg has a few of those. For me, it's the showers. I'm a shower man, but in French hotels the showers...

What's Your Problem?(manage yourself)
September 1, 2004... Q I am at my wits' end. I'm a recent business studies graduate with a first-class degree, but I've just been fired from my third job in a year. It's always the same pattern: I ace the job interviews, get a position, and then never make it past...

First-Class Coach.(time management)
September 1, 2004... Q I'm always doing everything on the run, leaving projects half-finished and not up to my usual standards. I feel I have no breathing space to plan ahead, but am constantly fire-fighting in the here and now. How can I manage my time better and...

MT Business Lifeforms: PA to the chief executive - Margaret Fowles, Marvens Plc.(Personal Assistant)(Biography)
September 1, 2004... It's barely 10 o'clock and already Margaret has brushed off three senior executives, dispatched a brace of broadsheet journalists and told a bright young thing in the Cabinet that 'no really does mean no'. Not that she's been rude or dismissive...