Management

The University I attended selected a book to cover our course. There is a process for book selection, when covering a three year course.They chose this one Management-John Naylor-Prentice Hall- Financial Times. Although technology has made vast advancements since 15th December 1998 (I was introducing a revolutionary, regenerate, retail approach  to a run-down former striving retail convenience outlet) -the publication date. The principles remain.

I wouldn't  take the comments published on the Amazon site as matter of fact. The Business School at Oxford Brookes is one of the best in the UK. I was a big fan of the book at the University. I could relate so much of its content to my position in management three years before I was introduced to the book.


I am going to extract various parts of the book; and provide opinion about practical examples of the effect on business not just in management:

Management Accounting for decision makers  again Financial Times-Prentice Hall- This book comes with a software kit. You can complete exercises on the your PC in an organised way. Similar to Sage There is some key monetary analysis in this book, essential to any business decision making. While marketing/advertising and serving the consumer are desirable positions. The technical analysis is THE stumbling block for entrants in the The Dragons Den. The questions the dragons ask about finance, are very basic accounting questions. They are not management accounting, budgeting, break even analysis, cost - volume- profit analysis- strategic management accounting questions.The are the most basic business questions the dragons receive a guesswork response, they become upset and that's it the pitch, the Q&A is over.  Click on this link and analyse the content by looking inside the book.

We analysed these subjects, but for individual business units, forming a chain of retail outlets at this hotel Conference at Fenny Stratford I was the youngest, had the least life experience, by fifteen years. The room we sat in, is on the slide-show.

The manager I remember most, over the various regional employers of over twenty thousand, is now one of the most productive managers of giant retailer Asda in one of their premier outlets nationally. He was just so relaxed and open & approachable. Even if you're are burning inside, with stress, worry or doubt, being warm & mannerly with your colleagues, associates, partners is a proven senior management outlook to behold.


You give anyone who speaks to you, or approaches you, with the most respectable attitude. No discrimination, regardless of their position. Even if you're being held up in a robbery, being warm, providing  wisdom or attempting humour. If you're at all flustered, display signs of panic, become anxious in a public position, it could be a restaurant, any business, they are all transferable, you're not large scale management material. The first impression I was presented with by Simi Chaudhry, was quite simply one of awe. He transferred from a £10.4million superstore to £83.2 million hypermarket, like a duck to water. I'm quoting him because, to be quite frank, I have very similar behaviour traits myself.  

Discrimination ethics, I can't drive this point home enough, it doesn't matter what race, age, sex, sexual preference, position in the company, equality status a person.

If David Cameron as Prime Minister, appears to be discriminating about areas of poverty & deprivation, it will be only a negative policy. The Prime Minister absolutely captured my attention at their conference in 2008. He entered the week, after receiving a publicity battering, various reports suggesting it was make or break territory. His speech would define his leadership, his attempt to overhaul a Labour government which had exposure after revelation, about the illegal war in Iraq. A war which had, and was still costing, multiple loss of life, and obviously of lesser importance, millions of pounds.  So he was under extreme pressure internally, his whole career was on the line. Well here is the impressionable, everlasting in my mind, never surpassed in my recent memory bank, reason he is the Prime Minister. He stood up and spoke with confidence, clarity, empathy (I could continue to list superlatives to describe the speech), and passion about us, the we-everybody in the UK. Our prosperity, our future.
He must have been internally in a state of anguish, if he'd been reading anything about himself and his party in any of the newspapers.

Its this type of leadership I will be analysing in this blog. The ability to present yourself, no matter what pressure you're having to overcome. To stand, and not read, from his no doubt, quality notes. He spoke from the heart, the result:

1. The polls changed and remained in favour of the conservatives, upon stepping down from the podium.
2. He became Prime Minister of Great Britain-
3. 
   

To follow:  Lots of analysis on the management books I've listed above