I’ve spent most of this week editing a video lecture by Pankaj Ghemawat, professor of global strategy at Iese, the Spanish business school. It is about the limits of globalisation and how companies need to think hard about the various types of difference that still exist in what he calls a “semi-globalised” world. He’s an excellent speaker. Do check it out.

Anyway, as a consequence of all those hours getting a headache in front of Final Cut Pro, I haven’t read much in recent days so this is a rather brief round-up, consisting of just one other link, and it is very “off topic”. But if you are feeling in need of a bit of moral support in the struggle to innovate in a manner that satisfies your own, potentially deranged, potentially inspired agenda, then read this absolutely marvellous obituary from Wednesday’s FT.

I’ve just received a claim form asking whether I had bought a long haul ticket from British Airways or Virgin Atlantic between August 11, 2004 and March 23, 2006. If I had, it told me that I was in line for a refund after the two airlines were busted for fixing fuel surcharges.

I rapidly searched through the relevant period on my creaking Palm Tungsten. Damn. I’d flown to New York with Virgin on a ticket bought in May 2006. My disappointment was brief, however: a visit to the official refund website revealed that the payout would only have been £4-£20.

Still, for people whose jobs required them to cross the Atlantic regularly, the sums involved could be attractive. I’m curious to know if such travellers are being told by their employers to hand over the money refunded - something that might affect employees who bought the tickets themselves and then claimed the cost back via expenses.

I guess it is like the old argument about who owns air miles accrued on company business. Employees usually seem to get the benefit of the doubt on that one. But in these hard times, businesses are clawing back cash any way they can. Ripe ground for conflict, I imagine.

Maybe desperate times really do call for desperate measures. Have you considered booking a place at a London Business Forum event this autumn?

A smart brochure giving details of 16 talks arrived recently in the post. These will be, the Forum confidently declares, “business events that inspire!” Some may question that claim when they see that the first presentation, next Tuesday, features the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, talking about leadership. In the recent mayoral election Mr Livingstone did not inspire voters – not enough of them, anyway – to win another term in office.

The schedule of events runs from September through to the end of November. Some predictable big-hitters will be appearing: the writer Malcolm Gladwell and the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak. One name I hadn’t expected to see on the list was that of Lawrence Dallaglio, the former England rugby captain, who will speak about “Leading by Example” (something to do with punching people, perhaps?).

Continue reading: “Gurus to one hit wonders”

Last week I pointed out that McKinsey was offering to take a bullet for Wall Street by suggesting that it might not be a bad idea for investment banks to spend less on consultants.

Now the Sydney Carton of the consultancy world has a new insight likely to please bankers. A couple of its directors have co-authored an article declaring that the best companies view downturns as a good time to make acquisitions.

McKinsey isn’t suggesting that every company will be in a position to find the funds to purchase rivals. But for financially-solid businesses its advice seems plausible - and it certainly won’t hurt the flow of M&A fees into the investment banking industry.

Elsewhere:

1. How to drink vodka on a business trip to Moscow (including vomit advice);
2. The fundamentals of marketing;
3. Anxious CEOs must resist the urge to become secretive and control-freaky;
4. Five monkeys and a banana: a clever workplace parable;
5. Managing foreign postings in a downturn.

It emerged today that members of the biggest union at Acas, the British conciliation service that acts as a go-between in rows between employers and workers, have voted in favour of strike action.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents a large majority of Acas workers, said a pay rise that was supposed to take effect this month hadn’t even been negotiated. It also reckoned the eventual pay offer would be well below inflation.

Acas staff have previously taken part in industrial action linked to general public sector grievances - Acas is funded by the UK state - but neither side of the dispute could remember them ever downing tools over an issue linked solely to their own workplace.

A strike is still a threat rather than a certainty; other forms of action are also possible. If a strike did happen, I guess it could delay the resolution of disputes elsewhere simply because of a lack of mediators (I am assuming that relationship counsellors at Relate wouldn’t want to step in to cover for them).

But could a strike also harden general opposition to pay increases that lag inflation? After all, if the conciliatory folks at Acas walked out over a cut to their real wages, wouldn’t it be hard for them to persuade others to make a similar sacrifice?

I put the question to Dave Cliff, the PCS national officer for Acas. He said a strike wouldn’t limit the ability of Acas advisers to resolve disputes, saying it was accepted that there were times when an employer needed to offer below-inflation pay increases - during periods of financial distress, for instance.

Either way, I don’t think there is any doubt that it is a fascinating stand-off. Acas said discussions were ongoing and that it hoped to find a resolution.

1. Entrepreneurs make decisions differently to corporate managers.
2. How retailers use music to boost sales.
3. The way ahead for marketing.
4. Cheap air fares once more being pegged to Saturday night stays.
5. The hungriest companies in Brazil, China and India.

As well as getting rid of staff, financial firms have put the squeeze on their travel and entertainment spending in response to deteriorating economic conditions.

Now McKinsey claims that some US investment banks could save up to $2bn a year by cutting costs in ways that are less likely to antagonise their remaining workers.

The consultant reckons that for some banks, spending on things like real estate, IT and office supplies grew too fast during the fat years and could now be pruned aggressively without sowing discord among the troops:

Inititatives to curb expenditures need not be extremely demoralizing to frontline employees… 80 percent of fixed costs have minimal or no impact on a bank’s employees or culture. Launching initiatives that target these areas, we estimate, could in many cases produce most of the noncompensation savings that banks aim to achieve while reducing the possibility of targeting areas that could damage employee morale.

Hang on a minute. I’ve just noticed the fifth entry on McKinsey’s list of investment bank costs that could be cut with “minimal or no impact on employees/culture”. The entry says “consulting”.

Let me try to get my head around that. Is McKinsey - a consultant - seriously recommending that investment banks consider ways of cutting their spending on consultants?

It looks that way to me. A McKinsey spokeswoman declined to comment.

All eyes will be on Denver, Colorado, next week, as the Democratic party gathers to salute its Presidential nominee Barack Obama. This week we should be finding out who will be joining him on his ticket as Vice Presidential nominee.

Leadership transitions are done pretty carefully in the otherwise fraught world of US politics. The general election is set for Tuesday November 4, but the new administration will not begin its term until inauguration day, January 20 2009.

In Britain things are done very differently. Our general election is traditionally held on a Thursday, and by the following morning the new government – if voters have opted for a change – takes office. Former prime ministers can be kicked out at very short notice, sometimes, as with Edward Heath in 1974, effectively becoming homeless on their eviction from No.10 Downing Street.

The new mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has been finding out just how difficult these leadership transitions, British-style, can be. Having been elected in May, he has just lost his second deputy mayor (his third senior appointee to go in as many months).

Continue reading "Tough (transition) at the top" »

It could get worse, of course. The markets, I mean. “The worst is not/So long as we can say, ‘This is the worst’,” as Edgar cheerfully points out in King Lear.

Several big institutional investors expect to see another major banking collapse. A survey of 146 of them, carried out recently by Greenwich Associates, the US financial services consultancy, found that almost 60 per cent believed another failure would take place within the next six months.

Serves them right, you might say. All that absurd financial engineering was bound to end in tears. The former editor of The Economist, Bill Emmott, wrote last week that our sympathy for the Masters of the Universe should be limited. “The past year has actually not been very bad at all – unless you are a banker, a bank shareholder or Gordon Brown,” he said.

Now the financial wizards – or at least some of them – are copping it from another, unexpected quarter. A paper presented at last week’s annual gathering of the US Academy of Management in California suggested that there is something else we can blame the investment banks for: the spread of management fads.

Continue reading ‘Column: Beware of fad-loving analysts‘

People often sign up for an MBA as a way of easing themselves out of one career and into another. But is a spell at business school really such a good platform for that kind of professional reinvention?

Philip Delves Broughton, an FT contributor, studied for an MBA at Harvard and wrote a book about his experiences. What They Teach You at Harvard Business School - called Ahead of the Curve in the US - has been getting deservedly good reviews. Its prose is crisp and evocative, its author playful yet sincere.

Mr Delves Broughton frets about the failure of elite capitalists to balance professional achievement with family life. He also casts doubt on the ability of business schools to enable a career switch, a theme picked up on by Della Bradshaw in her FT review.

One of Mr Delves Broughton’s classmates is quoted as saying:

They say this is your chance to change industry, but very few are succeeding. You see, the problem is that the path of least resistance is to do banking or consulting. Now, if you wanted to do either of those, you probably could. But if you wanted to get out of them you really have to fight…If you don’t have experience in an industry, they don’t want you, so you end up going back to the industries that you do have experience in.

Continue reading "MBA may not be a catalyst for career change after all" »