But... ...if, like us, you are tired of predictable reportage, superficial reasoning and articles that focus on symptoms instead of root problems, read on...
Why do so many magazines, books and newspapers judge a manager by his or her ability to turn around a company? To help answer that, here's a second, more personal question: do you think a turnround provides a realistic test of a manager's character and abilities?
Whatever your views, read on because you certainly won't find what you are about to read in other media. This is valuable material you can use to get ahead -- and we charge what it's worth. In business you get what you pay for.
Managers good and bad
Before we get personal about certain Chief Executive Officers, turnrounds and their abilities, let me explain that we are going to invite you to download a special issue of Letter to Thinking Managers, the private monthly newsletter. It's on free trial, which means if you don't like it, we don't charge you. There's more about that time-limited offer later and you'll find it worth looking over. If you don't take up our offer, there's no other way you'll ever get to see this report.
This special issue of Letter to Thinking Managers took a look behind the corporate quotes and press releases (the kind you find in those cheap business magazines and papers, but not in our newsletter). We examined what really happened in many of those famous turnrounds and concluded that standards are pretty low. To read the special issue, Managers Good and Bad, order your free trial subscription today. We'll also send you two current issues. Just click below, or on any link in this message. Follow this link for details of our free trial offer, or read on to find out more about the hard-hitting way we cover management thinking: http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/prewp/pwmani95.html
From terrible to mediocre
To illustrate our point about Chief Executive Officers, Letter to Thinking Managers examined the current position of Xerox and other companies. Here, to start us off is a quote from Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox: 'Turnround or growth, it's getting your people focused on the goal that is still the job of leadership'.
Yeah, but... I suppose moving Xerox from terrible to mediocre certainly constitutes a great leap forward. But the sales increase expected this year would be the first since 1999 - which in absolute terms hardly ranks as a medal-winning performance. Not only are the standards debatable, but the methods used in turnrounds are essentially one-off, short term and misleading. But as you'll learn from our particular brand of investigation, they are also highly predictable.
Try Letter to Thinking Managers, at no charge for the next two monthsLetter to Thinking Managers is the monthly private briefing from Edward de Bono and Robert Heller, world leaders in creative business management. It is only available on private subscription and you won't read our kind of hard analysis anywhere else. Follow this link for details of our free trial offer, or read on to find out more about the hard-hitting way we cover management thinking: http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/prewp/pwmani95.html
Some say: we hit too hard on the chin.
We Say: stand taller and we can't reach you
Our invitation is for you to look over Letter to Thinking Managers newsletter at no charge over the next two months. Click on any of the links in this message. We'll send you two issues, with your free special issue on Managers, Good and Bad.
Now let's get on with the fight:
How CEO's disguise bad management
In your special issue, you'll learn how 'The cult of the CEO' disguises bad management. We also explain why financial performance is mistakenly used as the prime measurement by journalists and observers who, perhaps, are too young or inexperienced to know better. We explain why good managers cannot be differentiated from the bad just on the evidence of the financial results.
This, as with all topics discussed in Letter to Thinking Managers, is powerful, right-hand lead stuff. We punch right through the flim-flam of corporate double-speak and in the process show up other media who dutifully file their me-too reports as though everything was going well.
You are unlikely to see or hear anything remotely like Letter to Thinking Managers elsewhere. Download your $47 report nowYour special issue is worth $47 but won't cost anything with your trial subscription. Remember - our material is not cheap, but then nothing of any value is. As a businessperson who has registered on our website, I believe you will recognise just how effective our kind of 'management logic' can be - especially when effective performance assessment is called for. Follow this link for details of our free trial offer, or read on to find out more about how we cover management issues: http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/prewp/pwmani95.html
So what's wrong with the Xerox 'turnround'?
Mulcahy's turnround program is typical: make sharp staff and business cutbacks, and bring in a new chief financial officer. As we explain, that's due to the misplaced 'cult of the CEO'. But the tougher tests of management ability come after the clean-up, when the turnround boss must compare, not with the failed predecessors, but with the best of the competition. The CEO cult assumes, against all the evidence, that the fate of the entire organization depends overwhelmingly on the single eminence who takes all the decisions and governs all the strategic management.
In fact the truth is an organisation's success or failure depends on the strength of management at all levels and in all functions. A 'well-managed company' can't just mean one with a brilliant and forceful boss. A truly great CEO proves him or herself by the quality of the people managing alongside the central figure and those who answer to these leading managers: and on how all staff are mobilised to give their best. So why don't other media pay attention to this crucial issue?
Let's go back to our very first question:
'Why do so many magazines, books and newspapers judge a manager by his or her ability to turn around a company?' Here again is where Letter to Thinking Managers gets tough and rough. So if you are into the corporate easy life and don't want to rock the boat, cut your engines and stop reading this message now. But if, like us, you are tired of predictable reportage, superficial reasoning and articles that focus on symptoms instead of root problems, read on because we would like to have you aboard. Follow this link for details of our free trial offer, or read on to find out more about the hard-hitting way we cover management thinking: http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/prewp/pwmani95.html
Are you, like us, tired of phony financial measurements?
The media, like the stock market, by and large measures turnrounds and good performances in the sales figures, the profit and loss accounts and the investment returns. It doesn't take much hard thinking and analysis to report, for example: • Immelt's 19% rise in the GE stock price • Pepsico's Reinemund's 17% predicted rise in 2004 earnings per share • Nike's Knight's 15% rise in fiscal year sales to $12.3 billion, on which the company earned nearly a billion dollars - up by 27%. Investors may claim this is perfectly fair. And the journalists find it all boringly easy to write up those 'business reports'. But it's not insightful analysis, nor a good measurement of management ability. The investor cares only for the financial results, above all the share price. Wall Street is indifferent to the means, so long as that price rises. Yet the price has many disadvantages as a measure of managerial worth. It is not within the direct control of any management and has an unspecific relationship to underlying non-financial performance.
It is fundamentally short-term, whereas the destiny of the company is determined over the long term - Nike is nearly 40 years old, for example. Worst of all, putting the financial cart before the performance horse risks the taking of short cuts. Read on to find out what pandemonium that can bring! Follow this link for details of our free trial offer, or read on to find out more about the hard-hitting way we cover management thinking: http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/prewp/pwmani95.html
What we can learn from good and bad managersUsing the criteria set out in Letter to Thinking Managers, just take a look at the list of 'good' managers published in Business Week for example. No virtue stands out. But one vice is glaringly conspicuous among the worst and the fallen. That vice is fiddling the figures. Here is our 'Roll of dishonour': • Mortgage giant Fannie Mae misstated earnings for three and a half years, leading to a $9 billion restatement that wiped out 40% of the supposed profits in the period • The Krispy Kreme doughnut chain is in trouble for the way it accounted for franchisee buyouts • Royal Dutch Shell notoriously overcounted its oil reserves by 20% - a mere 4 billion barrels • Software giant Computer Associates boosted quarterly earnings by keeping its books open for extra days - 'the 35-day month' • At Nortel Networks, a great name in telecoms, 'several investigations are under way to determine if CEO Frank Dunn cooked the books to generate profits and cash bonuses' The moral is clear. You can spot the good managers because they insist on having financial and other data delivered to the highest possible levels of accuracy and honesty: and they don't treat the financial outcomes, which take in their own options and bonuses, as achievements in themselves: Financial outcomes are just a product of those achievements. Follow this link for details of our free trial offer, or read on to find out more about the hard-hitting way we cover management thinking: http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/prewp/pwmani95.html
Letter to Thinking ManagersLetter to Thinking Managers is the leading newsletter for those managing every kind of business, at whatever level. You receive two issues to evaluate during your trial. You also receive our special issue on Managers, Good and Bad. That alone will put you far ahead of the average business commentator. If you decide to continue your subscription after your two-month free trial you'll build a substantial workbook of best practice procedures for every important aspect of running and growing a successful business.
This is a summary of what we cover.
Creativity • Decision Making • Lateral Thinking • Problem Solving • Risk Strategy • Change Management • Crisis Management • Human Resource Management • Management Consulting • Management Styles • Management Theories • Management Training • Performance Management • Quality Management • Risk Management • Strategic Management • Total Quality Management • Business Analysis • Business Development • Business Ethics • Business Management Skills • Business Strategy • International Business • Internet Business • Corporate Acquisitions • Corporate Communication • Corporate Culture • Corporate Restructuring • Corporate Responsibility • Corporate Turnaround • Entrepreneurship • Leadership
Membership is for those who seek to advance through utilising 'best practice' methodology - for those who want strategic and tactical answers for almost any question today's business climate can throw your way. You may already be using some of our methods - most really successful businesses are. Apply now for your free trialTo see how Letter to Thinking Managers can benefit you and your career, we'd like you to come aboard right away. The normal subscription price is US Dollars $399 a year - this is what our worldwide members pay and it's worth far more in bottom line outcome. We don't send out sample copies or free back issues because that wouldn't be fair to those who are paying the full price and would remove the advantage they get from their subscription. However, we recognise you would probably like to make a proper assessment of the advice we offer without making the full $399 commitment. So we have arranged a system whereby credit card holders can 'log on' to our membership services for a special two-month trial. There is no charge for this. If you decide to become a full member, your credit details have been Okayed and we can process your order without you having to go through the whole process again. If you decide not to continue, we destroy your delayed-action trial order details before they go through in two months time. You will have paid nothing. As a trial member you qualify for: • A two-month free trial. Your credit card details are provisional and will be held, uncashed during that time by our secure payment administrator Worldpay • Two free issues of Letter to Thinking Managers for assessment • A free copy of the special issue: Letter To Thinking Managers' Guide to Managers, Good and Bad. Sold separately, its' worth $47 • Full money-back guarantee. Once aboard, if you decide to cancel your full membership you can contact us at any time for a refund • 'Welcome aboard' 50% discount. If you decide to become a member following your trial you receive your first year's subscription at half price - you pay just $197 (instead of $399.) Unconditional GuaranteeIf during your two-month trial you decide you don't wish to continue, just write to us (or use a simple online form), and we will cancel your payment before it's processed. All the material you have received is yours to keep. Your trial is guaranteed by us, and by the independent secure payment administrator, WorldPay. Follow the link below. Your free trial package is ready for immediate download. Remember - if at any time during your two-month trial you don't feel Letter to Thinking Managers lives up to its promise, simply contact me at my address below to cancel your order. Follow this link for details of our free trial offer, or read on to find out more about the hard-hitting way we cover management thinking: http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/prewp/pwmani95.html#trialform Yours sincerely Mark NunneyPublisherEdward de Bono & Robert Heller's Letter to Thinking Managers Follow this link for details of our free trial offer, or read on to find out more about the hard-hitting way we cover management thinking: http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/prewp/pwmani95.html#trialform Robert Heller is the founder of the magazine Management Today and one of the world's best-selling authors on business management. Edward de Bono is the founding father of lateral thinking and is widely thought of as the world's leading authority on creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking as a skill.
This email is sent by Heller Management Ltd, 7 Park Place, Wadebridge, Cornwall, pl27 7ea, United Kingdom
