Interviews – Media – Ben Backhouse

Ben Backhouse has recently joined London-based Talk Radio as a production assistant. Backhouse graduated from Bristol University in 1999 with a degree in English. Like many graduates he was keen on a career in the media, but unlike the majority, he has managed to achieve this. We asked him about the new job and whether

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Interviews – Media – John Fitton

John Fitton, 23, works for The Lab – the experimental low cost TV production unit set up by LWT in January 1999. Fitton is a graduate of St Catherine’s College, Oxford, where he gained a first class honors degree in English. He gave us a few tips on how to break into the industry

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Interviews – Financial – Toby Watson

Toby Watson left Oxford University, where he was a blue in rugby, to balance playing professional rugby for London Scottish, while holding down a full-time job at Deutsche Bank. He was recently headhunted from there by global investment bank Goldman Sachs. We interviewed him about his recent move and how to succeed at the highest level

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The Celestine Prophecy

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

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The Work Life Manual

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.

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The Goal

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

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The Age of Unreason

Summary Handy’s book is a groundbreaking philosophical and practical guide to the inevitable changing ways of organizing work and the workforce. Handy starts from the viewpoint that radical change is not only desirable but essential, if economics and society are not to be irreversibly damaged. The book focuses on the necessity of becoming more creative

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Jack Welch Speaks

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

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Net Slaves: True Tales of Working on the Web

Summary In the introduction, the authors admit that this book was turned down by countless publishing houses with the objection: ‘Who cares? Who wants to read about techies pissed off at their jobs?’ Co-author Bill Lessard says he is a ‘living testament to the fact that most Internet careers are nasty, brutish and short’. So,

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McCormack on negotiating

Summary In an easy-to-read and economical style, Mark McCormack, the US founder and chief executive of global sports marketing company International Management Group (IMG), presents a collection of his insights into the complex world of business negotiation. McCormack on negotiating is an engaging and useful step-by-step guide to the most important aspects of cutting a

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Steve Redgrave: Casting off

International rowing won’t be the same without Steve Redgrave – five-times Olympic gold medallist and national hero. But will Redgrave be the same without rowing? The commitment demanded by the sport is no less than a lifestyle – on the water seven days a week, 49 weeks a year. When that is gone, what remains?

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Tony Blair

You are the youngest British prime minister this century, so it is difficult to criticise the way you have planned your career. Anyone who captures the number one job in the country certainly knows how to scale the careers ladder. In order to reach your post you first had to become leader of the Labour

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Terry Venables

According to the press, the public, Sir Alex Ferguson and Terry Venables, there is only one man for the job of England football team manager. That man is Terry Venables. Having said that, the press and the public are hardly renowned for their good sense and Ferguson is Scottish, but surely ex-England boss Venables is

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Falling from grace

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

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