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"

• Cabinet to slims down for Sarkozy - Lucy Kellaway wrote about the balance between private health and employers earlier this week, but I’m not sure how many managers can get away with this. I especially liked his apparent suggestions he “told at least one would-be appointee to drop some weight and change his hair style if he wanted the job”
• Google paid a $1bn premium for YouTube - an interesting admission from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, that the company paid $1bn more for YouTube than it was worth simply to make sure no one else could outbid it (Hat tip: The Browser)
• Success stories in bad times - Ok, so the headline writer employed a bit of hyperbole (do Twinkies qualify as a success?) and it’s a bit US focused but chocolate chip cookies are certainly a silver lining to any recession

• A husband and wife switch jobs for two weeks - Huband takes become the stay-at-home parent, wife takes over his job as an editor of Slate, the online magazine. Not exactly the craziest switch in the world; Susan Burton is a former editor at Harper’s Magazine (declaration: I was an intern at the magazine at the time when Susan was an editor there) but still could prove an intriguing experiment. At the very least, it should be a good read.
• David Hockney’s iPhone passion - If I was Apple, I’m not sure I could have come up with a better advertisement of just how useful the iPhone is for some people. This has to take the mobile phone as utility to a new level. The piece includes examples of work he’s created on the phone
• The price of being gay - The authors admit that this isn’t an exact science but…
• Parental benefits for the self-employed - I’m Canadian and a parent and I know lots of people who might break out and do their own thing if not for the need to keep their benefits, including maternity or paterntiy pay. Does this hold back business and entrepreneurship?
• France Telecom makes changes at the top in wake of scandal of suicides - a story that still has yet to be resolved. Here’s the FT’s take, the story in Les Echos, Liberation and Le Figaro

Today sees the publication of CK Prahalad’s update of  The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, his book originally published in 2004 that argued that businesses could eradicate poverty and earn profits at the same time.

Stefan Stern will be writing his column on some of Prof Prahalad’s key ideas next week. Until then, you might want to check out the ‘bonus section’ on the website above.

I’m a bit late on to this but last week Jerome Kerviel, the “rogue trader” who is accused of losing French bank Societe Generale €5bn, was interviewed on French television.

The video on France 2’s Objet du Scandale is revealing partly because of all the talk at the G20 and, in the UK at the Labour party conference, of the need to curb bankers’ bonuses or at least restructure how they are paid out. Kerviel’s broader point is that there isn’t any point; whatever rules are created, clever people will find a way round them.

But I thought his other comment on the nature of his former job as a trader pointed to a wider issue that doesn’t seem to be attracting quite as much discussion. “It’s a job that makes you a bit crazy, an addict. They push you to take risks,” he said, referring to the culture of his former workplace.

Continue reading "Jerome Kerviel: curbing bonuses won’t work"

• Daily Talk, an extraordinary one-man newspaper in Liberia. Alfred Sirleaf is an amazing publisher, editor, designer, writer.

The new wave of luxury retailers - An interesting trend is emerging in fashion. A series of insiders - including The Sartorialist, Monocle’s Tyler Brûlé (a columnist for this newspaper) and property developer Nic Candy, of Candy and Candy - are using their social networks to become retailers.

In the case of The Sartorialist, it builds on this idea of collaboration which I referenced in a post earlier this week about Liberty and Hermes. It also hints a new form of luxury in the post-boom. Brûlé has talked about this but could this see a move away from the idea of mass luxury to a more community-based, social network version?

Apple held its “It’s only rock-n-roll” event yesterday and Steve Jobs the leader of the Apple tribe (which I wrote about in Why Community Matters a few weeks ago) was back in front of the camera and his community. In the video after the jump, Richard Waters explains why this was the most dramatic news from the company and why there remain some major unresolved questions in terms of the company’s future prospects.

Meanwhile, Chris Nuttall reviewed the video iPod nano, the “technology star of the event” and live-blogged the event over on the Tech Blog.

Continue reading "Steve Jobs is back but Apple has work to do"