David Rohde, a New York Times reporter, recently escaped from the Taliban after being held as a hostage for seven months. Unusually, particularly in the world of the 24-hour newscycle, the NY Times managed to keep the story of his abduction quiet with the co-operation of a raft of other news organisations.

Bill Keller, the paper’s executive editor, explained to CNN how they worked with their sometime rivals and also dealt with the bloggers who are often thought to be more difficult to control.

UPDATE: David Rohde returned to the New York Times yesterday, with his Afghan translator.

For anyone wondering whether we have our finger on the pulse of management, our story on how Generation Y is may be more similar to the Baby Boomers than marketers and managers had thought taps in into a rich vein of discussion right now on a group commonly defined as “demanding, selfish, text-addicted job-hoppers with little loyalty to their employers”.

In addition to the studies mentioned in the story (one by London Business School’s Centre for Women in Business the other from the US-based Center for Work-Life Policy), LBS has opened up a blog called Genderation Y on the issue and the Ashridge Business School has just released Generation Y: Inside Out, a research project into this sector of the workforce.

Is trust a renewable resource? We have to hope that it is. If trust cannot be restored from its current sickly condition then leaders will soon find their task becoming almost impossibly difficult. The old quip about knowing when the boss is lying – his lips move – will be the new conventional wisdom. Managers will take their place alongside politicians, second- hand car salesmen and journalists as yet another undesirable element: social outcasts.

Many are gloomy about the chances of greater levels of trust returning to corporate life. If you are viewing the world from London, which is a global centre of excellence for cynicism, it is hard not to be. But trust is declining just about everywhere. The most recent findings from the Edelman trust barometer, a well-established annual survey, found that 62 per cent of “upper income, highly educated” people in 20 countries had less trust in corporations than they did a year previously. I doubt if averagely educated, average income people would be any more trusting either.

This much you know already. But can anything be done about it? Last week, I went to a seminar in cynical old London in search of help.

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

“Blue is the colour, football is the game,” as Chelsea fans like to sing. Tonight their team is playing Barcelona in the semi-final of Europe’s Champions League in the Catalan city’s Camp Nou stadium. But here’s the thing. The guys from London are being coached by an interim manager.

Guus Hiddink, Chelsea’s temporary boss, was brought in by Roman Abramovich, the club’s Russian owner, in February, after the sudden dismissal of his predecessor. Mr Hiddink, who was already manager of the Russian national team, agreed to look after the Chelsea side until the end of the season in May.

Once he was installed, the team’s flagging performances soon picked up. Talented players, who had seemed flat and uninspired under the former manager, began to look like superstars again. After a brilliant victory away at Liverpool this month one sports reporter declared: “The Hiddink effect is looking like something close to alchemy.”

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

Great news. BBC TV’s “The Office” is now going to be re-shot in a new version for Israeli TV.

This will apparently be the sixth foreign version of the UK original to be made. (The others were on US, Chilean, French, Canadian and Russian TV.)

The drudgery and absurdity of office life is clearly a universally recognised phenomenon. Perhaps one day every nation on earth will have its own series of The Office?

The format should work well in Israel. The David Brent character is a classic Schlemiel.

My former colleague Charlie Pretzlik provoked an outraged response from some readers when he trashed Ayn Rand in a 2007 comment piece.

The intervening years have only strengthened his thesis, however, as illustrated by a new article on the BNET.com site entitled ‘Why Do CEOs (Still) Love Ayn Rand?’.

Elswhere:

• Tom Peters lists 48 pithy strategies for thriving as a manager;
• Tips from London Business School on competing with low-cost rivals;
• Seth Godin concedes that the Kindle is a hit but claims it missed a few tricks;
• Think twice before getting between a Generation X worker and his or her children.

To adapt that key question concerning the Romans posed by Reg, the not very heroic leader of the People’s Front of Judea in Monty Python’s Life of Brian : “What has HR ever done for us?”

We know the usual answer. It is delivered with a sneer and a derisive snort. HR managers are the “abominable ‘No’ men” (and women, too, of course). They get together to form “business prevention units”. This relentless carping has undermined their self-confidence and surveys confirm that HR people worry that colleagues do not take them seriously. They struggle to influence the corporate agenda.

The financial crisis has only made things worse. HR is summoned to redundancy negotiations but may then be ignored. And now questions are being asked about what HR did or did not do to help avert this crisis in the first place.

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

A Harvard Business School working paper — more specifically, its witty title — has just made me smile.

‘Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting’ examines how employees do stupid things when their bosses tell them to focus on excessively narrow and demanding targets.

It features a useful ten-point checklist for managers to consult before they set goals for others. I paraphrase:

• Are the goals too specific?
• Are they too challenging and what happens if they are not met?
• Who sets the goals and is the employee adequately involved?
• Is the time horizon appropriate or does it foster short-termism?
• How might the goals influence risk-taking and what are the acceptable associated risks?
• How might the goals promote unethical behaviour and what safeguards are in place?
• Can they be tailored to individuals while remaining fair?
• How will they affect the organisation’s culture? Are team goals more appropriate?
• Do affected staff have an intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivation?
• Would learning, rather than performance, be a better target?

Further viewing: the FT’s recent series of managerial psychology video lectures by Nick Epley of Chicago Booth business school, particularly the third lecture on motivating staff.