WHEN THE only response to repeated failure is a call to try harder and do better, you know there’s something badly awry with the premise. Einstein was right: insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results
Too many mistakes means too many managers
AS THEIR finances go into meltdown, companies are scrambling to cut costs across the board – in every place but the right one.
Guess what? Self-interest is bad for the economy
IF YOU THOUGHT you felt the earth shudder on 23 October, you were right. When Alan Greenspan told the House Oversight Committee ‘I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they wer
Heaven-sent chocolate, with profits to match
ALONG WITH the election of a black President and the end of 30 years of Reaganomics, here’s another thing to celebrate this week: the 10th anniversary of Divine Chocolate.
Hot prospects for a company with a conscience
JOHN CLOUGH smiles wryly at the news that the number of fuel-poor has just increased by a third to 3.5 million. As chief executive of Eaga, a green services company whose job is to help people out of fuel poverty, he can’t ignore the prospect of a few hundred thousand more homes to insulate and […]
Gore-Tex gets made without managers: Hi-tech pioneer WL Gore is weathering the crunch well, says CEO Terri Kelly, because it is mercifully free of bureaucracy. Simon Caulkin talked to her
In most companies, turning down the founder and chief executive’s request to look after a pet project would be a career-stopper for a young engineer on her first assignment. But WL Gore and Associates is not most companies.
When it came to the crunch, MBAs didn’t help
IT’S NOT just in finance that the inquests have begun. What part have the business schools and business academics played in the implosion of the world’s banking system?
High earners need to be brought down to Earth
IF, AFTER 30 years of effort, the only solution on offer to a problem is to ‘try harder’, you know there’s something wrong with the premise. So it is with City pay.
‘Trust me, I’m a manager.’ Doesn’t work, does it?
As today’s banking paralysis demonstrates, trust is something business can’t do without. It isn’t some fuzzy nice-to-have it’s the lubricant without which the City and Wall Street are as frozen as a rusted motor.
Economic model for sale: several careless owners
ONE OF the glaring fault lines running through the financial crises of recent years is ownership. In the days of hedge funds and day-trading, who owns companies? And what rights and obligations does ownership bring?