The wedding speeches that precede the toast to the bride and groom fill many of the people who have to deliver them with fear. And many end up saying something quite trite such as “Don’t they make a great couple? Thanks to everyone for coming” and other ill‐thought‐out or unrehearsed...

Around half of drivers with US trucking firms leave their jobs within three months of starting work. With employment in the US trucking industry increasing much faster than the country’s total employment growth, and despite a recent slowdown of the US economy, why are companies finding it so...

In recent years, there has been a subtle change in the advertising campaigns run by Swedish car manufacturer Volvo. The cars have always been renowned for their solidity, reliability and longevity but Volvo now aims to highlight the fact that these qualities do not come at the expense of style....

In 2000, Steve Ballmer took over from Bill Gates as chief executive of Microsoft. In so doing, he took on the massive challenge of restructuring the company’s management of finance, sales, product development, marketing and strategic planning. Ballmer was charged with reinventing the company...

“The Beefeater Academy has opened doors which otherwise would have been closed to me. I have learned more about myself and my ambition in the last seven months than in the past seven years in Beefeater,” said a participant in management development by action learning at Whitbread...

An unusual teambuilding exercise helped employees at StorageTek, an international provider of data storage and network solutions, to see how their individual efforts fit into the company’s “big picture”. Around 650 delegates from 14 countries, plus senior managers from company’s...

In a bid to enhance internal‐consultancy skills and develop more effective service providers, the HR advice and consultancy practice of Shell People Services – a shared‐services organization within the Royal Dutch/Shell Group – commissioned executive‐education specialist Roffey Park to...

Vodafone’s change from a command and control culture to one based on coaching and collaboration has helped the company to top the league table of mobile‐telephone network quality. The company culture of the mid‐1990s, which had its roots in the manufacturing facilities of Racal, had caused...

The European division of Citigroup’s Corporate and Investment Bank (CIB) has gone beyond activities such as conferences, awareness training and network building, to launch an effort focussed directly on tackling the obstacles to enhancing diversity and getting results. In March 2002 the...