The Fish Rots From The Head

As a Chinese proverb says 'The fish rots from the head' and so it is with businesses and other organisations - the buck starts and stops in the boardroom. This third edition of Bob Garratt'sbestselling book that highlights the importance of effectivecorporate governance has been extensively updated following the corporate scandals of the early 2000s - Enron, WorldCom, Tyco - and the abysmal boardroom standards that the recent credit crunch and ensuing global financial crisis brought to light. This new edition builds on the Learning Board model developed by the author and now widely used internationally by corporations and public sector organisations such as the NHS. The result is a thought-provoking and highly practical book that will be invaluable to all those with responsibility for corporate governance - and also those who subject them to scrutiny. What Sir Adrian Cadbury, whose committee's groundbreaking report on corporate governance was published nearly twenty years ago, said about the first edition remains as true today as ever:'No director can afford to ignore this book'.

Set against today’s backdrop of boardroom scandal and incompetence, an important book that clarifies the tasks and liabilities of the board and provides a programme of learning.

The Fish Rots from the Head takes the bull by the horns and addresses the challenges of poor customer service in Africa. The writer comes from Uganda but raises service challenges one sees everywhere on the African continent, often in establishments that lay claim to international accreditation. The Fish Rots from the Head is important because it attempts to approach the age-old challenge of customer relations management from an African point of view - specifically by illustrating that part of the problem is with cut and paste training programs as well as importing physical labor and standards that pay limited heed to the cultural mores of the natives.The Fish Rots from the Head is important because it acknowledges that by the time the customer encounters unsatisfactory service, the problem already lies elsewhere - with management. There is nothing new about this; what is new is admitting it in an African setting where it is always assumed that to invest money in setting up a business means that one is the owner of all wisdom.This book not only sheds light on the causes (often unseen) of poor customer service, but also best practice and practical solutions. All the case studies in the publication are from the writer's personal experience which gives the book the authority and authenticity of a native observer.This is a book intended for decision makers, managers, entrepreneurs, human resources practitioners, anyone studying administration and/or customer relationship management and those already struggling with how to improve seemingly intractable customer service standards in organizations that are already up and running.

Following the international success of The Fish Rots from the Head: Developing Effective Directors, this sequel from Bob Garratt explains the public's distrust of the people who govern us - the directors, owners, regulators and politicians - and how this can be changed. Currently, Corporate Governance is too narrow and fragmented. The growing gap between the angry public and the urban elite, made manifest by Brexit and Trump, is due to a lack of appreciation by both parties of the roles and values of well-governed organisations in bonding a society at both national and international levels. This book pulls no punches and directly challenges directors and politicians to reframe their thinking about 'governance' to address the public's distrust of them. This is the ROT that needs to be STOPPED. This book is truly radical in going back to basics and then designing a new national action learning system between the four main players overseen by continuous public scrutiny. It is designed to counter the official reports of organisational failure that end too frequently with the weasel words 'but the main problem was a failure of corporate governance'. Currently this is code for 'so no-one can do much about it'. This book shows what can be done. The book explains how the disjointed responses to the angry public have resulted in a series of unhelpful regulations made worse by their thoughtless application. This reaction has reduced the chances of directors being able to deliver their main purpose - ensuring the future of their business by better understanding the complexities of their future financial, social and environmental policies and enabling improved creativity and thoughtful risk-taking. Stop the Rot sets governance in a much wider social context. The acceptance of global Human Values in all of our organizations, with their necessary ethics and behaviours, ensures the development of Inclusive Capitalism to the advantage of all.

The devilish has long been integral to myths, legends, and folklore, firmly located in the relationships between good and evil, and selves and others. But how are ideas of evil constructed in current times and framed by contemporary social discourses? Modern Folk Devils builds on and works with Stanley Cohen’s theory on folk devils and moral panics to discuss the constructions of evil. The authors present an array of case-studies that illustrate how the notion of folk devils nowadays comes into play and animates ideas of otherness and evil throughout the world. Examining current fears and perceived threats, this volume investigates and analyzes how and why these devils are constructed. The chapters discuss how the devilish may take on many different forms: sometimes they exist only as a potential threat, other times they are a single individual or phenomenon or a visible group, such as refugees, technocrats, Roma, hipsters, LGBT groups, and rightwing politicians. Folk devils themselves are also given a voice to offer an essential complementary perspective on how panics become exaggerated, facts distorted, and problems acutely angled. Bringing together researchers from anthropology, sociology, political studies, ethnology, and criminology, the contributions examine cases from across the world spanning from Europe to Asia and Oceania.

Love it? Hate it? Or, just don’t care? How we feel about something dramatically affects how we interact with it. When we feel, we care. When we care, things happen. Companies that are thriving, not just surviving, are much more than a set of ruthlessly efficient and mechanistic processes – they are a social system operated by people for people. The quality of relationships, both inside and outside the organization is a far more important driver of sustainable success or failure than the quality of its control systems. The head is important, but it is the heart that matters most. If you want your customers to be brand ambassadors and your employees to brag about you to their friends, you need them to not just think you’re great – you need them to feel you’re great. You need them to love you – and for that, you need them to feel that you love them. For over a decade Marc Cox has been helping companies whose toxic cultures, miserable employees, and angry customers have all but destroyed them to rebuild their company spirit, discover the business case for love and build an organization that is wonderful to work for, brilliant to do business with and has the mindset of creating memorable employee and customer experiences. Underpinned by fresh insights and perspectives, robustly tested and refined by the real world experience of working with a wide range of companies and over 2,000 senior executives drawn from all parts of the world, and filled with fascinating and illustrative “love stories” the book will help you to make the business case for love. It will help you to find a more rewarding and invigorating way of working – both emotionally and financially. In short, it shows what happens when the love is put back into business.

This is a book about living with Alzheimer’s, not dying with it. It is a book about hope, faith, and humor—a prescription far more powerful than the conventional medication available today to fight this disease. Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in the US—and the only one of these diseases on the rise. More than 5 million Americans have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia; about 35 million people worldwide. Greg O’Brien, an award-winning investigative reporter, has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's and is one of those faceless numbers. Acting on long-term memory and skill coupled with well-developed journalistic grit, O’Brien decided to tackle the disease and his imminent decline by writing frankly about the journey. O’Brien is a master storyteller. His story is naked, wrenching, and soul searching for a generation and their loved ones about to cross the threshold of this death in slow motion. On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer’s is a trail-blazing roadmap for a generation—both a “how to” for fighting a disease, and a “how not” to give up!