Look and learn from Enron
Some major lessons can be learnt from Enron's collapse. Here they are, in an easy to remember list
A vital item is missing
John Mayo's account of his troubled tenure at Marconi should serve as a warning to managers. Success in business is achieved by supplying goods and services effectively; not by seeking to boost share prices.
Thinking in sevens
Categories and lists help us to make better sense of a complex world. But they must be chosen carefully.
Oxford Experiences
John Kay became a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford in 1970 and taught in the university for ten years. After periods as Director o...
Makings of a boss
In his latest book Jack Welch claims to tells us ,"Straight from the Gut",how to be a successful CEO. But do business autobiographies really offer any useful advice for managers?
On John Kay’s Bookshelf – Archive page
Books that John has reviewed in the past...
The customer knows best
The management of public services is a key issue for the next five years. The process of re-appointing Tony Blair as Britain's CEO gives some pointers to how it should be done.
Shock of the new
Not all business strategy problems have answers, including those of BT, as Sir Christopher Bland will find when he takes over.
High street homilies
As Marks and Spencer goes "back to basics", its story is a paradigm of what happened to British business in the last decade. Was the company's problem that it changed too little - or that it changed too much?
A lost cause?
The notion that effective management and free intellectual inquiry are incompatible derives from the belief that if you give people aut...