A Negative Management Style Causes Employee Stress and Ill Health

Metal Health and Wellbeing (a UK Government Office of Science 2009 publication) reported that one of the leading causes of stress at work and ill health is linked to the style of management. That is to say that stress and ill health are minimised, if a manager provides autonomy to his or her subordinates, manages them by ‘praise and reward’ rather than ‘fault-finding’, provides them with flexible working arrangements and creates a ‘person-friendly’ organisation culture.

Studs Terkel, in his book Working, wrote; ‘Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor, in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying’.

Many people believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That is a mistake according to Daniel Pink, writing in his provocative and persuasive book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on How to be a High Performing Leader with its underlying theme of ‘selfless leadership’ as opposed to ‘selfish leadership’ is the perfect compliment to Drive.

It is to be hoped that all leaders of the future will read these or similar books, take the messages to heart, and make the world a better place.

Ron Wells

Hedging and Liquidity Risk

A discussion (English-Chinese) in relation to the management of future price risk, was presented in Shanghai, to an invited audience of EMBA/MBA and other Business Executives. The inter-active presentation was followed by an enlightening discussion of Risk Management topics related to dealing with corporate customers and suppliers, commodity traders, banks and brokers.

One Business Executive and MBA Student commented:

‘Hedging and liquidity risk is still rather a new topic to most of businessmen and managers in China, except those working in banking and the other financial institutions. So your lecture will urge those managers, who want to grow their business in a healthier way, to learn more about the risk management tools. Simultaneously, your lecture will also raise awareness of what an important role credibility plays for a company in the market, which I think is even more important in China.’

View the presentation at:

http://www.barrettwells.com/LiquidityRiskHedgingSHAug2010encn.pdf

See a Related Article:

Hedging Future Commodity Price Risk Can Damage Your Company’s Liquidity:
Hedging future commodity price risk is something to consider, only if you guard against the chance that the outcome could damage your company’s liquidity and/or its competitive position. The English version of this article is available at: http://www.barrettwells.co.uk/liquidity.html

To obtain a copy of the Chinese version of the article click: http://www.barrettwells.co.uk/HedgingLiquidityRiskMar2010cn.pdf

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Convention on International Security Interests in Mobile Equipment (Aircraft etc)

The Cape Town Convention or Treaty, as it is commonly known, took effect in 2006.

‘The treaty creates an international system of perfecting security interests in aircraft and simplified and stronger methods of enforcing the rights created by such interests. It was created to engender more certainty for lenders which will, in turn, lower the costs of financing for the purchase and lease of aircraft.’

The European Community ratified the convention in April 2009. The convention was due to enter into force throughout the European Community (with the exception of Denmark) on 1 Aug 2009.

Below is a link to a good introductory article explaining the Cape Town Treaty:
http://www.aviationtaxlawyer.com/pub_docs/Article-CapeTownTreaty.pdf

Official site for the Treaty:
http://www.unidroit.org/english/conventions/mobile-equipment/main.htm

List of countries that have ratified the Convention:
http://www.unidroit.org/english/implement/i-2001-convention.pdf

Editor: These notes kindly supplied by honorary GCMG member SN

The Death of Modern Management by Jo Owen (full version) - YouTube

You may find it interesting to watch this video of the author providing a synopsis of his book The Death of Modern Management, which I have been reading. …..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiz-D8rm80E

As with so many books, you have to read to chapter 10 to find the real meat of the piece. The point made is that IQ and EQ are no longer enough - a manager/leader today additionally needs effective PQ: political quotient.

PQ is said to be 'about gaining the informal power required to achieve the formal requirements of the job.' Since managers can no longer rely on 'formal authority to make things happen.'

'…the core skills that make up PQ' include:

Building networks of trust and influence
Creating alliances to make things happen
Dealing with conflict
Shaping the organisation's agenda to meet your needs
Dealing with organizational conflict and resistance
Managing ambiguity and uncertainty
Finding the right assignments and projects to work on
Discovering the real rules of survival and success in your firm

Lack of PQ is why '….you may well find people who are both smart (IQ) and nice (EQ), but they languish harmlessly in the backwaters of (your) organisation. Meanwhile, people who are neither as nice nor as smart seem to levitate towards the top of the organisation, using nice smart people as their doormats on the road to the top.'
….according to the author

Ron Wells

The Death of Modern Management – How to Lead in the New World Disorder

I am currently reading this book, written by Jo Owen, published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, ISBN: 978-0-470-68285-2.

I’m still busy reading the ‘where we are and how we came to arrive here’ part of the book so haven’t yet reached the part that will really interest me; the ‘so what should we do?’ part.

Here’s one quote that may give a flavour though:

‘Better educated employees have ever higher expectations about the nature of their work, their conditions, their pay and their prospects. Managing them can be a high maintenance activity. Managing people has moved from ensuring a compliance culture to building commitment.’

Have you read this book? If so, please write a comment.

Ron Wells

Global Credit Management – an Executive Summary

Global Credit Management – an Executive Summary was written for business leaders; Chief Executives, Chief Financial Officers, Business Unit Managers, and Owners of Small or Medium Enterprises. It consists of 168 pages of easy to read prose, free of unexplained jargon and containing few diagrams. In fact the writing style makes this book suitable for readers for whom English is not their first language, as well as for those who are not familiar with the world of credit management.

Global Credit Management is the perfect gift for a business leader or MBA student.

The Credit Manager of a global commodity trading house – one of the largest in the world – reported that his CEO saw his copy of Global Credit Management and promptly ordered six. The CEO then gave a copy to the Head of each of the company’s business units, presenting the book as ‘essential reading’.

The following dialogue is based on an actual incident:

Shift working Motor Mechanic to wife; ‘That book you ordered by Ron Wells arrived today, it’s pretty good.’
Credit Specialist wife; ‘What do you mean, ‘pretty good’, did you read it?’
‘Yes, I understood most of it; I just have a couple of questions you could assist me with.’

The Credit Manager of a subsidiary of a global energy company advised that his team of five credit professionals had read the book and hotly debated the ScoreCard recommendations. They concluded these would form a sound basis for development of their own solution.

A partner with one of London’s leading commercial law firms recommended the book to his colleagues as providing a useful insight into the increasingly important world of receivables asset management.

Global Credit Management – an Executive Summary serves several audiences equally effectively.

The credit professional finds an explanation of the whole field set down authoritatively, as well as several challenging, and potentially career enhancing new ideas to adopt or adapt.

The business leader, CEO, CFO, Division Manager, or enterprise owner finds Global Credit Management to be a book that spells out why credit management warrants attention, time and resources. The book also provides the basic knowledge a leader needs to effectively manage credit professionals at work. Alternatively a busy business owner will glean sufficient information - including step-by-step guides - to undertake basic credit management effectively, without additional training.
MBA students, including non-English home language students, will find this book fills a gap in their normal course work by providing the minimum knowledge necessary for any would-be business leader. This knowledge relates to one of the most important – yet often ignored – assets on the majority of balance sheets, the ‘accounts receivable portfolio’.

Trade Finance Bankers will find in Global Credit Management details of the challenges facing their clients. Utilising this knowledge they will be able to detect business development opportunities.
A Chinese version (simplified characters) of Global Credit Management – an Executive Summary is available. See www.t3plimited.com (English) or www.t3plimited.net (Chinese) for details.

Click this link for more details: http://www.barrettwells.com/gcm.html
Check Google Books - http://books.google.co.uk - for details, or Amazon - http://www.amazon.co.uk - to SearchInside!

BarrettWells