Upside-down Management
The Bottom Line
BBC
4.6 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2014
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What is the role of a business leader? To tell staff what to do or allow them to decide for themselves? One theory about management is that it should turn itself upside-down and permit those closest to the customer to dictate all sorts of business decisions including pricing, marketing and how to deal with complaints. This programme, first broadcast in 2013, won the Wincott Radio Journalism of the Year Award.
Guests John Timpson, Chairman Timpson Group Nikki King, Honorary Chair, Isuzu Truck UK Sir Gerry Robinson, Chairman Moto Hospitality Producer : Rosamund Jones.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading this program from the BBC. |
| 0:03.3 | In this edition of the bottom line, Evan Davison guests discuss whether companies perform better if they are turned upside down. |
| 0:11.5 | Hello and welcome to the programme. |
| 0:14.0 | Today we ask what happens when you turn companies upside down and get the people at the bottom to run things while the people at the top just sit |
| 0:21.8 | back and watch what happens. Now this program was first broadcast last year. It went on to win the |
| 0:28.1 | Wincott Radio Journalism of the Year award and so we on the bottom line thought you might want |
| 0:33.3 | to hear it again. It's a radical approach which has been called upside down management, |
| 0:38.4 | and although I've oversimplified it a bit, it is built on a philosophy that says companies |
| 0:42.6 | perform best when power is handed down. The man who wrote a book called Upside Down Management |
| 0:48.6 | and who runs his own family business that way is John Timpson. He's one of my guests, |
| 0:54.0 | we'll find out from him and two other |
| 0:55.7 | seasoned bosses, whether it works. So let's take a few minutes to meet all of them. And first, |
| 1:01.8 | Sir Jerry Robinson. And Jerry, you've led a number of businesses. You presented TV business |
| 1:06.6 | programs. Currently, you're the chairman of Moto. So tell us about Motos. Motorway service area. |
| 1:11.4 | Yeah, Motto is the largest of the operators on the motorway service outlets. What's the |
| 1:15.6 | turnover in a year of a motorway service? I'm going to have no idea. You're looking at a business |
| 1:20.5 | that generates upwards of a couple of million pounds, some at the larger end. They generate a lot |
| 1:25.6 | of income and run properly. They generate a lot of income and you know run properly they generate |
| 1:28.8 | a lot of profit how many of you how many does motos we have a total of something like 98 outlets |
| 1:33.3 | there are some slightly separated from others but a total of it 98 outlets okay thank you well also with |
| 1:39.0 | us is nicky king welcome back to the program thank you chief executive a suzu truck |
| 1:43.2 | UK and we've heard a little about jerry's business just give us the sort of geography of Welcome back to the program, Nicky, Chief Executive of Suzu Truck UK. |
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