Graeme Semple
Posts by Graeme Semple
“Ten easy ways to murder a business”
Luke Johnson, perhaps best known for his involvement in the growth and flotation of Pizza Express, currently writes a weekly column on entrepreneurship for the Financial Times. His current article – written in his typically direct and readable style – is called Ten easy ways to murder a business and was inspired by Jay Goltz’s blog post, Eleven Easy Ways to Destroy Your Company. Johnson has the humility to concede in his article that he has in the past backed […]
“Do CEOs Matter?”
“Good leaders can make a small positive difference; bad leaders can make a huge negative difference.” – Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford University It was announced last week that Marc Bolland, currently the boss of Morrisons, has been appointed chief executive of Marks and Spencer. The Guardian reported that, “Shares in Morrisons fell 2.2p this morning to 278.7p, a drop of 0.78%. Yesterday they lost 5% of their value, knocking around £380m off Morrison’s market capitalisation, when the news of Bolland’s departure […]
Language in business
“One of the big banks is seeking ‘passionate banking representatives to uphold our values’ – this is a lie. It wants competent people to follow instructions and answer the phones.” Lucy Kellaway Most people working in business – whether their core discipline is sales, marketing, HR, finance or law – would acknowledge that at some point they have been exposed to, or perhaps even been guilty of using “office-speak”. One particularly engaging and thoughtful commentator on this subject is Lucy […]
The art of the job ad
When a vacancy arises at an organisation a series of immediate demands tend to result in job advertisements which are written firmly from the perspective of the employer: “this is what we want”, not – “this is what it will be like for you”. This is understandable, whether the role has arisen after the departure of an important member of the team or because rapid growth necessitates the creation of a new job – in both scenarios, the niceties of […]
Small business culture in the USA and Europe
The Atlantic, a venerable magazine founded in Boston in 1857, recently published an interesting article by Derek Thompson in its business section called, Actually, America Isn’t a Small Business Country at All. The article turns on its head the belief that the USA has been more successful than European countries at creating an economic foundation of small companies, entities colloquially known in American English as “mom and pop businesses”. Certainly, as Thompson concedes, the USA tends to view itself as […]
