Rebels who look ridiculous

December 6, 2009 11:50 pm by Lucy Kellaway

Last month, Sir Martin Sorrell was interviewed on FT.com and was asked variously about the world economy, China and the future of the media. As I watched the video of this successful businessman earnestly holding forth, another, more urgent question formed in my mind. Poking out from under the sleeve of his elegant charcoal suit and crisp white double cuff was a tatty piece of pale blue string, knotted with its ends dangling.

I reached for my BlackBerry and fired off the following message to him: “Much enjoyed your interview … Just wondered: what was that blue thing on your wrist?”

In a trice the reply came back. “Relic of my new year in Bahia,” he said. He explained that he had made three wishes for each of the three knots and that only when the string dropped off would they come true.

The remainder of the article can be read here. Please post comments below.

Posted in Corporate culture, Creativity, Leadership, Management | Permalink

How to land on your feet when speaking in public

November 29, 2009 11:46 pm by Lucy Kellaway

Last Sunday at the American Music Awards, the singer J-Lo slipped and fell on to her bottom. Spookily, three days earlier, I had also fallen over while performing.

There were, however, a couple of differences between the tumbles. J-Lo had been climbing a human staircase of nearly nude male dancers and was wearing hot pants and singing lustily. I, on the other hand, was decently clad and quietly getting out of my chair to give a speech at a formal dinner for investors in Japanese equities. I tripped over my handbag and landed spread-eagled on the floor, my chin hitting the carpet. Crash, bang, wallop. The microphone I was wearing ensured that anyone who did not see the fall heard it.

Like most people, I find public speaking more frightening than spiders or the prospect of being mugged in a dark alley. What is terrifying is the risk of humiliation, of metaphorically falling flat on one’s face. It never occurred to me that I needed to fear it literally, too.

The remainder of this article can be read here. Please post comments below.

Posted in Career/skills, Communication | Permalink

When too much information harms the office

November 23, 2009 12:18 am by Lucy Kellaway

Traditional management is over. The internet has killed command and control. Now that everyone can analyse and ridicule their chief executive’s every move almost before they’ve made it, it has become impossible to order people about.

This view is put forward by Carol Bartz, the new head of Yahoo, in The Economist’s “The World in 2010”. It sounds pacey and plausible and for a second I was lulled into thinking that perhaps the “Niagara of information” really has changed management for ever. But then I looked around me. I saw lots of people at desks calmly doing what they were paid to do: working.

Command and control is not over and won’t ever be. Bosses are still bosses. If mine tells me to do something, I’m inclined to get up off my bottom and do it. If Bartz’s employees don’t get off their bottoms when she tells them to, there is a problem – and it has nothing to do with the internet.

The remainder of this article can be read here. Please post comments below.

Posted in Corporate culture, Management, Technology | Permalink

The return of managerial bone-headedness

November 16, 2009 12:30 am by Lucy Kellaway

The bear market in management bullshit is over. Last week, I came across two signs that managers’ brief flirtation with being sensible – which started the day that they watched staff of Lehman Brothers leaving the bank with their stuff in boxes – is now finished. It is time to be sillier than ever before.

A friend who works at a large, multinational company tells me that he arrived in the office the other day to find a bottle of water had been placed on his desk – and on every other desk in the 11-storey building – alongside a little card displaying a series of yellow blobs from the palest lemon to the deepest ochre. This represented the colour of urine depending on how much water had been consumed and was meant to tell employees whether they ought to be drinking more. Dehydrated workers were less productive, the card warned.

This is the most extreme example I have yet seen of a HR department infantilising the workforce and meddling in matters that should not concern it. In my experience, even the youngest child has a perfectly good way of working out whether it is dehydrated – which does not involve going to an office loo with a yellow colour card. If it feels thirsty, it demands a drink.

The remainder of this article can be read here. Please post comments below.

Posted in Management, Managing others | Permalink

Don’t work with your spouse

November 8, 2009 11:57 pm by Lucy Kellaway

Last week, Westminster MPs were told to engage in wife swapping. The committee looking into their inflated expenses ruled that they could no longer employ their spouses, but said it would be fine if they employed each other’s wives instead.

While I can’t see how the taxpayer will gain from these wife swaps, it is nevertheless a great improvement on the current arrangement. To allow husbands and wives to co-work as well as co-habit has always struck me as a bad idea financially, socially, practically and emotionally. It is not only MPs who should be banned from doing it – everyone else should be, too.

But despite this, the workplace is stuffed with married couples who work side-by-side. I used to be half of one myself. There are high-profile examples in every type of occupation. In politics, there is Hillary Clinton and Bill; in philanthropy, there is Bill Gates and his wife Melinda. And in the specialised field of management gurudom, there is Jack Welch and Suzy – who share a bed as well as a syndicated advice column.

The remainder of this article can be read here. Please post comments below.

Posted in Career/skills, Corporate culture | Permalink

Why ‘chillaxing’ isn’t cool

October 19, 2009 1:10 am by Lucy Kellaway

The other night, I asked my youngest child what he thought about his new secondary school. He considered the matter and then said: “It’s not very chilled.”

Continue reading: “Why ‘chillaxing’ isn’t cool”

Posted in Corporate culture, Management | Permalink

Taboo or not taboo? Some new office guidelines

October 12, 2009 1:16 am by Lucy Kellaway

Last week, while writing about the taboo that prevents millions of clinically depressed office workers from discussing their condition around the water cooler, I inadvertently broke another taboo.

Continue reading: “Taboo or not taboo? Some new office guidelines”

Posted in Management | Permalink

The perils of revealing your illness at work

October 5, 2009 1:26 am by Lucy Kellaway

One winter’s morning 24 years ago, I had a meeting with an elderly man in a basement room near St Paul’s Cathedral. He made me lie on a hard bed, hit my knees with a rubber hammer and peered into my mouth. He then shone a light into my ears, put a metal implement on my chest and pressed his fingers into my stomach. Had I been a man I would have suffered the further indignity of having to pull my pants down and cough so that he could cup his hand around my balls.

Continue reading: “The perils of revealing your illness at work”

Posted in Management | Permalink

How to be a top female boss

September 28, 2009 1:07 am by Lucy Kellaway

On Saturday, the FT published a list of the top 50 women chief executives in the world and, loving such lists, I settled down over breakfast to study it. First, I admired the double string of pearls worn by the CEO of Avon; the pearly white teeth of the Sara Lee chief and the spookily perfect skin of Yoshiko Shinohara, founder of Tempstaff in Japan – who looks younger than I do but turns out to be 74.

Continue reading: “How to be a top female boss”

Posted in Corporate culture, Leadership | Permalink