Category: Leadership

Ravi Mattu The Royal Mail – the saga that never dies

October 16, 2009 11:15 am by Ravi Mattu

The Royal Mail and its unions are at loggerheads. Again.

I moved to the UK in 1997 and like a letter that never reaches its final destination, turmoil in the organisation is one of the business stories that has been a constant throughout the time I have lived in the country.

Every year, it seems to have lurched from crisis to crisis: successive bosses have said that the service needs to modernise or die; unions and workers battle them back in negotiations, claiming that ‘modernisation’ is a code word for gutting the organisation, cutting jobs and reducing salaries to disastrous levels; and the government, publicly at least, seems keen to stay out of it as much as they can (though I have to say, Lord Mandelson’s statement on the decision by the CWU to strike – “Candidly, I think it is suicidal” – did strike me as extraordinarily strident).

Continue reading: “The Royal Mail – the saga that never dies”

Posted in Community, Consumers, Hard times, Leadership, Management, Managing others |

Stefan Stern A new look at age-old questions

October 13, 2009 11:38 am by Stefan Stern

Like the rain, recessions fall on the just and the unjust, and on people of all ages. But not every age group will face the same problems or react to them in a similar way.

Some pundits are predicting that, in the coming age of austerity, the workplace will be the setting for intergenerational conflict. Tensions over unequal pension arrangements or varying attitudes to work may cause trouble.

Others argue that now is the time to invest in youth. My colleague Luke Johnson last week recommended hiring “as many bright young things as you can afford”, in the hope that “their dynamism will counteract the inevitable conservatism of an existing institution”.

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

Posted in Community, Consumers, Corporate culture, Leadership, Management, Social change |

Ravi Mattu Further reading

October 7, 2009 4:21 pm by Ravi Mattu
Posted in Community, Consumers, Corporate culture, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Hard times, Leadership, Management, Managing others, Strategy/ops, Technology |

Lucy Kellaway 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 |

Ravi Mattu State of play

September 23, 2009 12:49 pm by Ravi Mattu

If you haven’t seen it already, do check out “State of Play”, our excellent series of interviews with chief executives of some of the UK’s biggest companies.

Leaders so far: Francis Salway of Land Securities; Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP; Warren East, Arm Holdings; and Michael Smith of Mind Candy.

Tomorrow: Justin King of Sainsbury’s who has some interesting things to say on how consumer behaviour may well have changed for good as a result of the recession.

Posted in Hard times, Leadership, Management, Marketing/sales, Strategy/ops |

Luke Johnson Leaders who use charm to reach the top

September 23, 2009 1:30 am by Luke Johnson

Humour and charm are a surprisingly powerful combination as a means of ascent in life. I have met a number of entrepreneurs who have built fortunes on the back of their wit and general popularity – and not much else. They disarm us with self-deprecation, we enjoy their company – so why wouldn’t we want to do business with them? Of course, it all has to be done well; sycophancy and flat jokes do not weave the same spell.

Continue reading: “Leaders who use charm to reach the top”

Posted in Corporate culture, Leadership, Managing others |

Stefan Stern Strengths become weaknesses

September 22, 2009 1:31 am by Stefan Stern

One year on from the fall of Lehman Brothers, the face of Dick Fuld, former chief executive, has been back on our television screens. Some of his greatest hits have received another airing. “When I find a short seller, I want to tear his heart out and eat it before his eyes while he’s still alive,” he declares in one clip.

Continue reading: “Strengths become weaknesses”

Posted in Corporate culture, Hard times, Leadership |

Lucy Kellaway Drug dealers are perfect gurus in a recession

September 21, 2009 4:57 am by Lucy Kellaway

At the age of 12, he was a drug dealer; at 22, he had nine bullets shot into him at close range; at 23, he had a career change and became a rapper; by 30, he had diversified into clothes, vitamin mineral water and condoms and now, at 32, has pulled off something that Jack Welch didn’t manage until he was 30 years older: 50 Cent is now a management guru.

For the rapper, this latest career move has come early. But for the management guru industry, it is long overdue. Mountaineers, conductors and army generals have all stepped forward to offer their tips for success to managers. But as far as I know, 50, as his fans know him, is the first hustler to give a helping hand to executives on their way to the corner office.

Drug dealing has considerably more overlap with business than playing the violin or climbing a mountain. It’s a competitive, fast growing industry in which the successful have to be even sharper and more flexible than the most driven businessman.

Continue reading “Drug dealers are perfect gurus in a recession”

Posted in Hard times, Leadership, Management |

Ravi Mattu Warren Buffett on US recovery and Ken Lewis

September 16, 2009 1:42 pm by Ravi Mattu

Warren Buffett at Fortune Magazine’s Most Powerful Women Conference has offered some praise for the US government’s recovery efforts (he was one of President Obama’s “economic advisers”, so perhaps the government listened to what he said) and has some praise for Ken Lewis.

Posted in Hard times, Leadership |

Ravi Mattu Further reading

September 11, 2009 1:19 pm by Ravi Mattu
Posted in Community, Corporate culture, Hard times, Leadership, Management |
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About the authors

Stefan Stern writes a column on Tuesdays on management. He is winner of the 2010 Towers Watson award for excellence in HR journalism, and has previously won awards from the Work Foundation and the Management Consultancies Association.

Ravi Mattu is the editor of Business Life, the FT's management features section, and a former editor of the Mastering Management series. He joined the FT in 2000 from Prospect magazine

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Elsewhere on FT.com: Lucy Kellaway

Lucy Kellaway writes a column on Mondays on work , poking fun at management fads and jargon and celebrating the ups and downs of office life. She is also the FT's Agony Aunt.

Elsewhere on FT.com: Luke Johnson

Luke Johnson writes an FT column on Wednesdays on entrepreneurship. He runs Risk Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and is chairman of the Royal Society of Arts.

Elsewhere on FT.com: Dear Lucy

Lucy Kellaway, FT columnist and associate editor, offers her solution to your workplace problems in a column in the Financial Times. In the online edition of her Dear Lucy 'agony aunt' column, readers are invited to have a say too.

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