Management Blog

Future-proofing: Managing the unknown

The London Business School, in association with the Financial Times, has posted a series of video lectures on 'Managing in an Unpredictable World'.

The premise of the series is as follows:
Is the world growing more or less predictable? The answer for most managers is both obvious and disturbing — the future becomes murkier with every passing year. Yet leaders must act, despite the brute uncertainty about what the future holds. How, then, can managers act with confidence when they cannot know what the future holds?

The 5 part lecture series is presented by Don Sull, an associate professor of strategic and international management at the London Business School. In addition to the streaming video files, transcripts and podcasts of the presentations are also available.

America's most wanted

Fortune magazine has released the United States' most admired companies list for 2006. Approximately 10,000 businesspeople were asked to vote for those companies that they admired from different industries.

The top ten are:

1. General Electric
2. FedEx
3. Southwest Airlines
4. Procter & Gamble
5. Starbucks
6. Johnson & Johnson
7. Berkshire Hathaway
8. Dell
9. Toyota Motor
10. Microsoft

Winners were also announced in subcategories - Apple led the field as most admired for innovation; Home Depot as industry champtions, and top company General Electric also took out the title of most admired for managing talent.

BYO laptop to work

INC.com has reported on the future trend of companies subsidising the staff purchase of laptops as they do mobile phones.

Research firm Gartner predicts that by 2008, 10% of organisations will provide workers with a stipend to buy laptops that they will carry between work and home, a move that allow companies to remove PCs from their books and tighten up the balance sheet.

"The laptop is becoming more of a personal device, much like a cell phone, and that is inconsistent with naming it a company asset," says Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds.

Reynolds suggests that the declining cost of laptops makes it possible to ask staff to buy their own, and will allow them to use a work laptop that fits their needs rather than the standard issue hardware.

The question of network security is immediately raised but it is believed companies are already facing this issue as many employees already access systems remotely using their home computers.

Just how happy are you?

This was just one of the questions raised at the Australian Institute of Management's breakfast and MasterClass today with Positive Psychology guru Dr Martin Seligman.

Dr Seligman is world renowned for his works on learned helplessness, depression, and on optimism and pessimism. He is currently Director of the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center.

He is well known in academic and clinical circles and is a best-selling author. Dr Seligman's bibliography includes an amazing twenty books and 200 articles on motivation and personality.

Dr Seligman's site www.authentichappiness.org includes a number of free questionnaires for you to benchmark your happiness and other traits against others in your age bracket, gender and location. The questionnaires measure areas such as your overall happiness, character strengths, optimism about the future and work-life satisfaction.

Social network analysis reveal informal networks

Analysis of social networks is helping a growing number of companies understand the informal relationships that exist beyond the obvious office hierarchies.

Employees surveyed are asked who they turn to for expertise or trust for information, and the results are plotted using software programs.

The diagrams drawn by management consulting firms and academics to map clients' internal networks help managers spot undiscovered talent, learn which employees are trusted by their peers, and expose the unconnected places in their organisations that may hold opportunities for innovation.

Innovation grant goes to Queensland banana farmer

A local invention that separates the hands of bananas as they grow has the potential to boost production and profits across Queensland.

Inventor Marc Jackson has received an $80,000 Innovation Start-Up Scheme (ISUS) grant from the State Government to develop his plastic Clip Slip device.

"The ISUS was created to help companies turn their bright ideas into a commercial reality, and Marc's device has the potential to slash production costs and wastage for Queensland's hundreds of banana growers," Deputy Premier Anna Bligh said.

"This Government has great faith in Queensland's innovative business community and I'm proud to say our Innovation Start-Up Scheme has nurtured 55 projects to the tune of more than $3M since 2000," she said.

New international business network resource for small business

Small businesses have an opportunity to get help to leverage their innovations into successful business models.

The Innovators Network has been launched by the Association for Competitive Technology, an international community and educational resource for small businesses in the technology industry. 

The network is will provide small tech companies with educational resources, information, and contacts. In addition to a montly newsletter, the Innovators Network also has its own blog.

Tomorrow's jobs in the USA

In its Tomorrow's Jobs report, the US Department of Labor includes projections of growth in the country's labour force between 2004 and 2014.

These include:

• More women will enter the workforce than men: 10.9% projected growth for the female labour market versus 9.1% for men
• There will still be more male than female workers: 53.2% share of the labour force for men and 46.8 for women
• Employees aged 16-24 will decrease to 13.7% of the labour force by 2014
• Employees aged 55 and over will increase from 15.6% to 21.2% of the labour force

The report also includes information on growth industries for employment - the education and health services in the lead, followed by professional and business services.

Qld cruise ship terminal project approved

Subject to an environmental impact study, Townsville's $1 billion cruise ship terminal development has been approved, along with $15 million in funding from the State Government.

State Development Minister Anna Bligh unveiled a detailed plan of the project after Cabinet approved the development agreement to support a cruise ship industry in Queensland.

Tourism and Transport Forum Australia director Christopher Brown encouraged government to further captialise on the booming passenger cruise ship industry by supporting the development of retail, dining and entertainment facilities near such terminals.

"Cruise passengers spend an estimated $110 to $140 per day while at ports, which compares favourably with the average spending of leisure visitors per night of $102. Each 1500-passenger cruise ship injects approximately $200,000 per day to the local port economies," he said.

Australia named most deregulated OECD country

Australia has become the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) model for open markets and small government. The new findings reveal we have become the most deregulated economy in the Western world.

The OECD report, Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth 2006, says Australia has the fewest restrictions on product markets of the 30 OECD countries, the lowest government ownership of business, and least impact of regulation on economic behaviour.

The report was not all positive - Australia still ranks poorly in venture capital financing for start-up companies, and business spending on research and development which ranks in the bottom half of OECD nations.

The OECD is once again urging the Australian government to strengthen vocational education and training, in order to reduce the number of teenagers dropping out of education.