End of teachers’ book. Corporate road warriors

The characteristic that most distinguishes today's executives is not their technological sophistication but the amount of time they spend on the move. To observe the real impact of globalisation, you only have to walk around an international airport. Among the crowds of tourists, an army of road warriors and corporate executives march red-eyed across the world's time zones. Global markets mean constant global travel.

Management consultants are among the most frenetic frequent fliers. They routinely cross continents for a face-to-face i meeting and then return home. They point to the importance of personal contact. For a profession built on rational analysis, it seems illogical. Face-toface meetings 5 when one of the parties is exhausted and jet-lagged seem

unlikely to benefit anyone. But most consultants act as if e-mail and satellite links had never been invented. For the masters of logic, only the face-to-face experience will do.

The question is why all the technological gadgetry has failed make a dent in the amount of business travel? The answer seems to lie with a simple statistic. More than 90 percent of human communication is nonverbal (some studies put it as high as 93 percent). Facial expressions, body language, eye contact - these are all key conduits. Without them you can't get past first base. It's tough to bond over the Internet. 'Most of us still want face-to-face contact,' says Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). 'A lot of people rely on their personalities to persuade others,' he says. 'That doesn't come out in e-mails, and video conferencing is limiting. They may also want to influence people outside of the meeting. A lot of lobbying goes on before and after meetings. That's why eyeball-to-eyeball is so important. We still don't fully trust the technology even though it's been around for a while. We prefer to talk behind closed doors.'

We also read body language to pick up the atmosphere, he says. 'We walk into a meeting and pick up the feel of what the other people are thinking. We watch how Y reacts to what X is saying. You can't do that by videoconference. Most of us don't have the self-confidence to believe we can build the sorts of relation­ships we need with clients and suppliers down the wire. Business travel won't decrease for that reason. It's a shame because at the moment we're burning out an awful lot of people.'

From the Financial Times

Unit 3. Organisation. Dirty Business, Bright Ideas (24th page)

By Gina Imperato

A headquarters with a difference Walk into SOL City, headquarters of one of northern Europe's most admired companies, and it feels like you've entered a business playground. Located in a renovated film studio in the heart of Helsinki, the office explodes with (#5) colour, creativity and chaos. The walls are bright red, white and yellow; the employees wander the halls talking on yellow portable phones. Liisa Joronen developed SOL Cleaning Service 11 years ago, out of a 150-year-old industrial empire owned by her family. SOL's competitive (#Ю) formula has five key ingredients.

Few people dream about becoming a cleaner. But that doesn't mean cleaners can't find satisfaction in their work. The keys to satisfaction, Joronen believes, are fun and individual freedom. Its cleaners wear red-and yellow (#15) jumpsuits that reinforce the company's upbeat image. SOL's logo, a yellow happy face, is on everything from her blazer to the company's budget reports. Freedom means abolishing all the rules and regulations of conventional corporate life, (here are no titles or secretaries at SOL, no (#20)individual offices or set hours of work. The company has eliminated all perks and statis symbols SOL's training programme consists of seven modules each of which lasts four months and ends with a rigorous exam. Of course, there are a limited number of (#25) ways to polish a table or shampoo a carpet. That's why SOL employees also study time management, budgeting and people skills.

Lots of companies talk about decentralising responsibility and authority. At SOL it's a way of life. (#30) The real power players of the company are its 135 supervisors, each of whom leads a team of up to 50 cleaners. These supervisors work with their teams to create their own budgets, do their own hiring and negotiate their own deals with customers. (#35) Liisa Joronen believes in autonomy, but she's also keen on accountability. SOL is fanatical about measuring performance. It does so frequently and visibly, and focuses on customer satisfaction. Every time SOL lands a contract, for example, the salesperson works at the new (#40) customer's site alongside the team that will do the cleaning in the future. Together they establish performance benchmarks. Then, every month, the customer rates the team's performance based on those benchmarks. 'The more we free our people from rules,' (#45) Joronen says, 'the more we need good measurements.' Laptops and cell-phones are standard equipment for all supervisors at SOL, freeing them to work where they want, how they want. Inside the offices there's almost no room for paper. So the company stores all critical budget (#50) documents and performance reports on its Intranet, along with training schedules, upcoming events and company news.

From Fast Company