live soft skills

soft skills Polly Peck, Maxwell, Barings The 20 th century <Polly Peck, Maxwell, Barings > In 1932, two economists Bearle and Means made some observations about American companies: ● Shareholders were more likely to sell their shares than speak out if they thought directors were not running the company very well. This could result in poor quality management never losing their jobs. ● Some American companies were getting very By the 1950s, companies were growing ever larger – what we now know as " The 1970s – 1990s saw problems starting to become common. By the late 1980s, there were some famous corporate collapses – some due to poor management, but many due to fraud: large , and with so many shareholders there was a growing gap between those who owned the companies, and those who controlled them. globalization " … the existence of large multinational companies with influence around the world was well under way. Polly Peck ● Rapid growth in the 1980s took this East

The South Seas Bubble by soft skils ● In the early Eighteenth Century, the South Seas Company was granted exclusive trading rights in the South Seas (South American colonies) in return for helping to finance Government borrowing. ● To help grow their operations, they looked for investors and issued shares. ● Things seemed to be going well – more and more investors put money in. ● There were expensive London offices – it all looked very successful. ● Management lied about how good it was – with no information available other than what management told them, investors did not know the truth. ● In 1718, Britain and Spain went to war … and the ability to trade in the South Seas was now zero. ● But investors did not know this and kept buying shares ….. ● …..whilst management secretly sold their own shares. ● Once the truth got out, there was a crash – the " South Seas Bubble " had burst. What can we learn from this? ● Investors need to be able to trust managers / directors