Articles Tagged Management

“After 2008, it’s understandable that the average American would be as mad as hell at America’s business leaders. Executives, even in a good year, tend to rank towards the bottom in credibility with the public…The current economic crisis provides all the ammo for a populist backlash, as you – and your portfolio – know too […]

“Most companies grade their employees’ jobs using some kind of ranking or rating system based on job evaluation. The grades assigned are intended to assess fair pay for people doing the same work, and are usually public, like the letter grades of schools. In theory, these systems are supposed to help people manage their careers, […]

During boom times, this is what companies say: “Employees are our greatest asset. We are nothing without our staff. We are a people business. Our greatest mission is to nurture talent. The only sustainable competitive advantage is what we do with people.” Blah, blah, blah… During recessionary times, this is what companies say: “Challenging global […]

The Edge is a quarterly management knowledge journal, carried as a free pullout in the Business Daily. This Friday (20 March), The Edge will focus on the business model that drives the Kenya economy: the family firm. Please make sure you get your copy. It will contain a compendium of articles by those who study […]

I remain stunned by the experience offered to customers by our supposedly excellent entrepreneurs. I am particularly appalled by our retail shops, most of which are woefully, bafflingly bad. I am in the market for a couple of computer printers. A relatively straightforward issue, you might think, since we seem to have a large number […]

“It’s clear that sleep deprivation can lead to disastrous workplace mishaps, with some of the worst accidents on record, including the meltdowns at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, occurring between 2 and 4 a.m., when the effects of sleep deprivation are most pronounced. But what happens to team dynamics and problem-solving capabilities when one or […]

They say travel broadens the mind. But often I find it just heats it up. I have just returned from South Africa, a country that receives 8.5 million international visitors every year. I stayed at the V&A Waterfront, which is the country’s biggest tourist attraction, drawing over 20 million foreign and domestic visitors annually. Kenya […]

The Edge, the Business Daily’s quarterly management series, is out today. The Edge is a free pullout in today’s Business Daily, and is produced jointly with Strathmore Business School. I am the Consultant Editor for the series. This issue focuses on the new challenges of people management: recruitment, retention, motivation and reward. It is a […]

“Even though everyone can now afford books, still no one reads. It is not just the factory workers who don’t read: managers don’t either. And what they don’t read in particular is novels. I have just asked two senior executives what it is that puts them off. Both said the same thing: I don’t have […]

“For many of us, it’s decision time. What do we do with our investments? Do we sell our stocks? Rethink our retirement? With the warning lights flashing, our natural instinct is to react. But that very moment, when the need to make a decision feels strongest, might very well be the time to do nothing […]

“…suppose you imagine yourself and a group of experts who seem to have converged on an enlightened opinion which has arguments to support it, and it has prominent influential people saying that. It can be difficult for someone to stand up in that room and air what seem to be half-baked or half-formed doubts about […]

Positive thinking has been the mantra of the modern world for quite a while now. Spiritualists, life coaches and business leaders all agree: there is nowt to be gained from negativity. We must all think positive, be positive and do positive – and all positive things will happen to us. No-one likes a doomsayer or […]

“The world’s largest insurance company, AIG, spent $440,000 on a lavish corporate retreat at one of California’s top beachside resorts a few days after accepting an $85bn emergency loan from the US government to stave off bankruptcy. Details of the week-long getaway enraged legislators at a congressional hearing yesterday where AIG’s former bosses were accused […]

“Many employers ask job applicants for personal references. Justification for this practice is beyond me. There’s no valid reason to believe that these references will help you to identify potentially high-performing employees. The reality is this: We all have friends who will say or write positive reviews of us. If every job candidate can provide […]

“…surveys show that business leaders around the world are deeply concerned about the intensifying competition for talent, (yet) few companies make it an integral part of a long-term business strategy, and many even try to raise their short-term earnings by cutting talent-development expenditures. Other factors compound the difficulties of recruiting enough appropriate talent: minimal collaboration […]

“Executive expatriates are expensive, as many multinational firms have learned. Moving a manager to a factory or corporate office in Dubai, Russia, or India can be a costly experience after providing relocation dollars, tax equalization, and housing allowances. For that reason and others, Western and non-Western companies competing in emerging markets are dramatically reducing the […]

“In the late 1920s, a German psychologist named Max Ringelmann compared the results of individual and group performance on a rope-pulling task. He expected that the group’s effort would be equal to the sum of the efforts of individuals within the group. For instance, three people puling together should exert three times as much pull […]

“A bitter rivalry between two Indian billionaire brothers has scuttled negotiations to combine two of the developing world’s largest mobile-phone carriers. South Africa’s MTN Group Ltd. and India’s Reliance Communications Ltd. called off talks Friday over a potential multibillion-dollar deal that would have created a wireless giant. Behind the collapse of the talks is the […]

When at a certain stage in my life I finally managed to generate some surplus cash (it took a long time), I immediately decided to invest in some stockmarket shares (as many do). I started reading the financial press trying to seek out a real winner of a company to back. I noted that many […]

“So the summit ended as such summits always do. The delegates agreed on the importance of the problem, the urgent requirement to spend more money: they emphasised the need for co-ordinated action, and resolved to meet again in future to reach the same conclusions. If you have no substantive analysis or common principles beyond acquiescence […]

The amazing success of the Safaricom IPO confirms that we are on our way to becoming a shareholder democracy, does it not? Hundreds of thousands of new shareholders have been brought into the bosom of capitalism, and are basking in the promise of the new wealth that will follow – yes? Anyone who thinks we […]

“…In a 2005 Australian study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers interviewed, during a 27-month period, 456 hospitalized cell phone users who had each been involved in a crash. The scientists combed the drivers’ call records to see how cell phone use affected their driving. Whether they talked hands-free or with a phone clasped […]

1. You learn 20% faster immediately after exercise than after sitting still. 2. If our ancestors sat still in the savanna for eight hours straight…they became somebody’s lunch. Our brains developed while we walked about 12 miles a day, seven days a week, for several million years. 3. The brain’s executive functions – higher-order capacities […]

“The gleaming 3.4bn pound new terminal at Heathrow Airport was opened to the public…and immediately went into meltdown when its baggage system failed. Over the course of five days, more than 250 flights were cancelled, and 20,000 pieces of luggage were separated from their owners. The chaos was a serious embarrassment for BAA, the Spanish-owned […]

“It had taken me some time to see the obvious, that talent is a country’s most precious asset. For a small, resource-poor country like Singapore, with 2 million people at independence in 1965, it is the defining factor. …To get enough talent to fill the jobs our growing economy needed, I set out to attract […]

Having given the matter sufficient thought, I now conclude that we need even more ministries than we think we do. That is my position and it will never change, not ever. It is clear from the justifications being bandied about for 40-odd ministries that whatever is important in Kenya must have a ministry in charge […]

“A sticky idea is one that people understand when they hear it, that they remember later on, and that changes something about the way they think or act. That is a high standard. Think back to the last presentation you saw. How much do you remember? How did it the change the way you make […]

THE WORLD’S TOP 10 MOST ADMIRED COMPANIES: 1. Apple 2. General Electric 3. Toyota Motor 4. Berkshire Hathaway 5. Proctor & Gamble 6. FedEx 7. Johnson & Johnson 8. Target 9. BMW 10.Microsoft Fortune (March 24 2008) Fortune magazine and Hay Group give us the World’s Most Admired Companies list every year. Only companies with […]