Stress Awareness Day 2014: How to cope with workplace pressure November 4, 2014 On Stress Awareness Day, Brian Claridge looks at how high-powered businesspeople manage the strain. It’s often painted as a purely personal issue, but research released today by Friends Life finds that stress could be costing UK companies £690m a day. The report, coinciding with National Stress Awareness Day, found that 23 per cent of [...]
Michael O’Leary: Ryanair CEO’s four lessons for business leaders November 3, 2014 Ryanair’s boss proves that plain speaking needn’t hold you back. Ryanair, the no frills budget airline, known for its hard-headed attitude to customer service, raised its profit forecast yesterday, after its half-year profits rose by a third. The news followed a profit warning a year ago, when guidance was slashed. Consistently low fares and [...]
Subtle signals are crucial in business November 2, 2014 Even the smallest actions can make a huge impression – think carefully before asking questions. Subtle signals exist in all of our interactions, and the best businesspeople have a firm command over the messages they are sending. New Tesco boss Dave Lewis, for example, quickly decided to sell the firm’s fleet of private [...]
The office horror stories to avoid this Halloween October 30, 2014 Liam Ward-Proud looks at the workplace gaffes that should keep you awake at night. Is smoking an e-cigarette at work the new eating soup with a dessert spoon? No one seems quite sure. Debrett’s, the etiquette taste-maker in chief and centuries-old chronicler of distinguished Brits, released its new handbook for modern politeness this week, [...]
Charismatic chief executives could be bad for firms October 29, 2014 Compelling as they may be, strong leaders can lack humility. I am soft, I am lovable, but what I really want to do is reach in, rip out their hearts and eat them before they die.” Not the words of a general before battle, but Lehman Brothers’s last chairman and chief executive Dick Fuld, [...]
Steven Pinker: How to banish business jargon October 28, 2014 The cognitive scientist tells Harriet Green why buzzwords just don’t cut the mustard. Business jargon is annoying: “we need to find the synergy here”; “do you feel empowered to do that?” It’s also utterly mystifying. What is a core competency? And how far can you feasibly stretch leverage? Guilty users we may be, but [...]
Don’t laugh: Posh Spice is a model for entrepreneurs October 27, 2014 The former pop star followed her passion and ignored the critics A FEW eyebrows might have been raised yesterday by the news that Victoria Beckham has headed a list of the UK’s top entrepreneurs of 2014. The accolade – from business magazine Management Today – has been awarded based on her estimated wealth (£210m), increasing [...]
Communicate, delegate and stay relevant: The Great War’s leadership lessons October 26, 2014 Military history is fertile ground for lessons in leadership. Scores of chief executives surveyed by Forbes cited Sun Tzu’s The Art of War as their favourite business book (with Oracle’s chairman Larry Ellison apparently applying the tome’s lessons in his company’s software standoff with SAP), while City folk taking Cass Business School’s executive Leadership course [...]
Contracts for star employees: The top five mistakes October 23, 2014 Be careful with bonus entitlements, and try to avoid long periods of notice. Star employees often have high salaries and exceptional benefits, and may also have “special” provisions in their contracts that could cost you if things go wrong. Hiring big names is a fraught business at the best of times, as Liverpool’s signing [...]
From cut-price gym fees to stop-smoking programmes: The dark side of staff health schemes October 22, 2014 Remember the look of successful businessmen of the past? With a self-satisfied grin and a greasy face, they’d sit down to enjoy a fine meal, with a swollen gut testing the strength of their belt. To no one’s dismay, these rounded figures have largely disappeared from the corporate scene. Still, we shouldn’t be overenthusiastic about [...]