Astrally projecting itself to the top of the bestsellers list in 1994, The Celestine Prophecy became the must-read of the management and business leadership world. A self-help book-cum-novel-cum-historical myth, The Prophecy encourages its reader to lead a more spiritual life through the discovery of nine ‘insights’, supposedly based on those discovered in an ancient Peruvian
Summary It makes good business sense for firms to make their staff feel good. This new study warns that firms who do not implement a ‘work-life strategy’ – defined as ‘helping people to combine work with family and personal life’ – actually lose competitive advantage to firms who do.
Summary The core theme of this book is Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints, otherwise referred to as TOC. Goldratt argues that manufacturing has for too long focused on producing, ignoring what is demanded by the market place, i.e. demand and capacity. Goldratt believes that one should balance flow through a system to meet the demand of
Summary Navigating Complexity collects together for the first time the ideas and language of a recent development in management theory – complexity theory. The command and control approaches to management ‘no longer hold true’, complexity theory asserts. The theory states that any system contains built-in unpredictability, that every system is comprised of many components and
Thirty goals in 63 international matches for England, a remarkable average of more than 20 goals a season in the Premier League and a league championship medal for unfashionable Blackburn Rovers – you’ve definitely done well for yourself. But could you do better? Your decision to quit international football after the European Championships in the
Summary In 1979 journalist Keith Waterhouse was commissioned by his editor at UK national tabloid the Daily Mirror to write an instruction manual for the newspaper’s new recruits. The result was a booklet that became an instant success, with half the hacks in Fleet Street trying to beg, borrow or photocopy what had started as
Summary Jack Welch Speaks is precisely what its title suggests: a collection of quotations from the chairman of General Electric Corporation (GE), one of the biggest companies in the world. These quotations are arranged by subject and deal partly with his own life, but mainly with his competitive, ruthless style of management, making it a
According to 3COM 65% of people who bought a Palm Pilot told the firm they heard about it from another person. People rely heavily on personal recommendations and as customers grow more skeptical towards advertising, Palm Pilot deliberately created a sense of something special when it showed its product to a select group of executives
Summary The academic and consultant Andrew Brown has selected six key elements of leadership that, he believes, illuminate the secrets of great leaders. Illustrated with countless examples of leaders from history and today, The Six Dimensions of Leadership, first published in 1999, tackles in 200 racy pages the six qualities in turn: heroism, acting
In the fictitious advertising agency Miller Shanks nothing ever seems to go to plan. When The Sun picks up a story that Gloria Hunniford has been groped by a client on an film shoot in Mauritius and PAs are making mock suicide attempts back at the office in London you might be tempted to think
Summary When Giants Learn to Dance sets out to show how truly innovative organizations are winning in the business world, pitting the bureaucratic management of corporate America against the post-entrepreneurial organization.
Summary Tom Peters’ 1994 book, The Pursuit of Wow!, is very much a product of its time, geared towards the contemporary and future marketplace and concentrating its energies upon the Internet, the open-plan office and the happy workforce.
Email etiquette – or ‘Netiquette’ – is causing traditional letters writers to scratch their heads in consternation. For in less than five years, the advent of electronic mail has thrown many writing conventions out of the virtual window. Even Debrett’s has recognised the dilemma and addressed the problem it in its 1996 Guide to
Like your wife, you are at the peak of your career. Also like your wife, you are suffering from a few problems in the public relations department. You must be careful not to sacrifice the respect you have earned for your tremendous skills by behaving recklessly on the pitch. You will find that sponsorship and
What is it that causes the mighty to fall? Why do so many of the ultra successful perish as a result of their own misjudgment? We take a look at some of the sufferers of this phenomenon of success You will not be surprised to hear that Sigmund Freud had a theory about this. In
Entrepreneur: in the last 12 months that word has taken a bit of a battering. It is a word seldom seen without the prefix ‘dotcom’, and automatically brings to mind the champagne-toting, get-rich-quick schemes of Boo and its confrères. ‘I saw an article in the Evening Standard the other day, saying the demise of the
Redundancy is becoming much more prevalent in the working society and it is now more likely that you will be the victim of a round of redundancies in your working life. But how you deal with a redundancy is extremely important; it can provide a wonderful opportunity or it could be devastating.
Kitty Donaldson takes you through your emergency kit for job survival in an economic downturn Work hard, play hard. Right? One by one your colleagues start arriving earlier than usual. They don’t take so long for lunch and they’re still toiling when you’re battling through the rush hour traffic. Are they extra keen, in line
Adeline Iziren takes you straight to the top Is your dream to reach the top of your profession? Do you sometimes sit at your desk and visualise what it would be like to do your boss’s job or – even become CEO of a major company? Whether you want to make it to the top
You’ve laughed about their idiosyncrasies and their spelling mistakes. But now those favoured clients in Japan are coming to the UK and it’s your job to keep their business. So how do you make a great impression – and more importantly, steer clear of any fatal faux pas?
