Category: Managing creative people

Three learning points for managers from “On Grand Strategy”

Posted on by Richard Sharpe

You wouldn’t think that an academic book on grand strategy would have many lessons for managers.  But John Lewis Gaddis’ On Grand Strategy does.  He is a Pulitzer prize winning academic at Yale.  He weaves a strong story with history and analysis.  There are many points of interest but I want to focus on three Read More

3 for and 3 against centralised content generation

Posted on by Richard Sharpe

Centralised content generation – or creating a hub for many publications to generate content – is on top of the agenda for many content generators. It’s been in operation for many years in some publishers for other functions and it’s time to take hard look at why it works and does not work. Functional or Read More

Managing up and down: Part 2

Posted on by Richard Sharpe

Here’s another thought about managing and reporting up and down to go with my top 10 tips of last week: When reporting up or down tell people what you’ve got, not what you’ve done. So many people report up by telling people what they’ve done rather than what they have achieved.  We don’t want the Read More

Raise a glass of blanc de blanc for Bob Heller

Posted on by Richard Sharpe

So, farewell Bob Heller, aged 80.  Bob made journalism about business, particularly management, into a real “profession”. He was the founder editor of Management Today.  A prolific and clear writer.  And a recruiter of talent. Among the talent he recruited was Nick Newman, now plying his trade as a great cartoonist and as a satirist. Read More

Frith directs at Bauer

Posted on by Richard Sharpe

Mark Frith has been appointed editorial director at Bauer. He will oversee Grazia, FHM, Zoo, Yours, Top Sante and Empire. He left Time Out in the summer after a stint of two years. Directing not editing Moulding a magazine is one thing, offering “strategic vision and support for the editors and publishers across the whole Read More