Earlier this evening, the winner of the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award was given to Liaquat Ahamed for Lords of Finance, his history of how central bankers’ mistakes led to the Great Depression.

As it happens, I shared a table at the ceremony with Mr Ahamed and his publishers - and managed to keep from revealing the winner to any of my dinner companions.

The book bowled over the judges - but did it bowl you over, too? Do you agree with decision or do you think one of the other shortlisted titles were superior?

Have your say in the comments section or vote on the awards homepage.

You can also see video from the event at the London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and find extra information about the winner and the awards.

A few weeks ago, the most popular story on FT.com was on Dyson’s new bladeless fan. I have to admit, I couldn’t quite figure out why so many readers were looking at it, but who am I to go against the grain?

I did wonder if it had anything to do with the following Dyson has among consumers and this video suggests I may have been on to something. Emma and Molly are two fans of the fan and have created a video showing just how this impressive device works. I especially like the Brazilian music overlaying the clip. What was that I said in a previous post about the changing nature of consumer engagement?

Of course, this could be nothing more than a clever marketing ploy and for all I know these could be Dyson employees or the wife and child of the guy who designed it. Whatever the case, I wonder if it will generate as much attention as our original story.

An extraordinary video has emerged of a London Underground worker who was filmed yelling at an elderly passenger (non-UK readers will not be able to see the video but it might be available elsewhere online). The employee has since resigned.

The incident happened on the day after Transport for London announced a price rise, which couldn’t have been great timing. That aside, it is interesting how quickly this story got out and how the instinctive reaction of a fellow passenger was to film the whole event, presumably on his mobile phone.

The quick dissemination of the message goes to the heart of all sorts of questions on the way we work: if you have a public-facing position, don’t expect that you can get away with anything because someone might be watching (though, London Underground are well covered with closed circuit television cameras - one assumes that if his bosses had seen him on their own footage, they would have been less than pleased but a colleague apparently “laughed and walked away” ); consumers/the public see themselves as more than mere clients - they are stakeholders, and the passenger who took the video claims that part of his motivation was the fact that it had happened on the day after the price increase.

England football manager Fabio Capello has had a remarkably successful career in Italy, Spain and now as manager of England (ok, he hasn’t won anything yet, but they have qualified for the World Cup). Sports analogies are used too often in the world of management speak (even for a sportsfan like me) but according to an article in the Guardian about his presentation at the Global Sports Summit in London, Capello reveals a couple of interesting truths.

First, he says that when he took over England the quality of the players was very high in training but not in matches.

“I understood everything when they played Switzerland in the first match, the same players who played well in training played with fear, with no confidence, and I said this is a big problem of the mind,” he said. “Step by step, game after game, we have improved a lot.”

Continue reading "Fabio Capello on the management of fear"

The US Chamber of Commerce is still in a bit of trouble - I wrote about the problems of the US Chamber of Commerce a few weeks ago. Now the New Yorker’s James Surowiecki questions some of the organisation’s claims on how many companies it represents. He says it could have misrepresented or “lied” about numbers of members

Canada’s WestJet airline doesn’t have a business class or premium economy, but it’s come up with another idea to give its passengers a bit more space, save on fuel consumption and avoid having to buy new planes for longer flights - charge people a bit extra to keep the middle seat vacant. According to Richard Bartrem, WestJet’s vice-president of corporate culture and communications, one motivation is to deal with the “question of real estate” when it comes to the armrest between seats.

I will confess, I didn’t realise this was such a problem but stranger business ideas have worked in the past, so I’ll happily eat my hat if this becomes a huge success.

I highly recommend today’s analysis of Banco Santander and Emilio Botín, its executive chairman, a bank that has been able to thrive when its home market and so many of its rivals have suffered so brutally in the recession. Obviously, things can change quickly in the world of business, but their steady rise from a small bank founded in the northern Spanish city of Santander into one of the world’s largest.

From a management perspective, the really striking fact is how important leadership has been to the organisation - much of its success is down to Emilio Botín, its executive chairman - and the company’s cautious approach to risk management.

One story the piece didn’t go into detail was how the bank responded when its exposure to the Bernard Madoff ponzi scheme was revealed. Rather than trying to cover it up, they were open about it and quickly offered compensation to their clients. Not only was this a good example of handling customer relations (apparently 70 per cent of its “Madoff” customers took up the offer) it was also a brilliant communications effort. This could have been a major stakeholder relations disaster for the bank, but by dealing with it in a forthright manner, it seems they were able to minimise as best they could the damage.

Dame Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales, said today that a number of prison managers had moved out “difficult” inmates because they were worried that their presence would negatively impact their inspection.

It seemed especially farcical because, apparently, it would have had no impact if the prisoners had stayed.

“The presence of those prisoners wouldn’t have affected our inspectors assessment at all,” said Dame Anne.

“Sadly for the many staff and managers who had worked hard to improve the two prisons, their efforts will inevitably be overshadowed by these events,” she said.

“This is deplorable, not only because of the effects on individuals, but because of the underlying mind-set that prisoners are merely pieces to be moved around the board to meet performance targets or burnish the reputation of the prison.”

What really struck me about Dame Anne’s comments was her concern that this would have a damaging impact on moral for the staff and lower level managers, and provide a negative example to them.

Continue reading "Even prison managers sometimes fiddle"