Search results

Ironically, the business challenges which require many senior executives to develop greater personal flexibility and adaptability often reduce the time available for personal development. An approach to assessing executive‐level development needs, which is both time‐and cost‐effective, is described. A framework for successful development, the determination of company expectation, establishment of the personal change context, auditing of personal strengths and development needs, and a development‐planning process is outlined. A summary model of the entire process concludes.

The second of a two‐part article elaborates on the themes espoused in Part 1 by identifying three development centre (DC) models: resource development, resource management and resource control. These illustrate the values on which the organisation is based and the messages it communicates; and then the models are linked to the business development cycle.

Discusses the development of potential in middle managers. Describes the development of competence in key areas and creating the mechanism for learning including action learning groups, performance management programmes and development centres. Concludes that the transition from middle to senior management should be more like a campaign march than a leap into the unknown.

Explains how British Telecom researched and implemented competence‐based development programmes. Describes their strategy for personal development planning among 20,000 managers. Reports on trials of development centres designed around specific skills leading to identification of participants level of competence. Concludes that putting resources into getting the development process right may be more important than concentrating on the accuracy of competence‐based assessment.

Development Centres (DCs) are an increasingly popular method of assessing key personnel to determine their development needs. They are also a highly visible and powerful organisational intervention which reveals an organisation′s core values and culture. This two‐part article focuses on DCs from two perspectives: first as a HR tool; and second as an organisation development intervention. Part 1 (here) examines what DCs are, what they comprise, the benefits, and key steps in establishing a centre. Part 2 (in the next issue) examines the linkages between three alternative DC models and both organisation culture and the business development cycle.

For any convergent nozzle passing a compressible fluid and discharging against a pressure below the expanding power of the nozzle, there is a unique pressure and temperature distribution both of which depend upon the overall resistances to flow and the reheating effect incurred. By measurement of a single function of state along the flow path it is theoretically possible to calculate the reheat and expansion efficiency. The following analysis for one‐dimensional irrotational flow is an attempt to predict on a basis of theory the probable difficulties which would arise in practice and the accuracy to be expected. It is found that the pressure distribution is insensitive to reheat, but that the temperature distribution provides a fair indication.

We publish this month a report of a case which was recently heard by the Stipendiary at Middlesbrough, in which a Co‐operative Society was summoned for being in possession of meat which was condemned as tuberculous and as unfit for human food. In view of the magisterial decision, it is of interest to review the facts of the case. It appears that Inspector WATSON visited the defendant society's slaughter‐house, and that he saw there several carcases hanging up and an employee dressing a carcase which was obviously tuberculous. In reply to Inspector WATSON'S demand, the internal organs of the animal were produced and were found to be covered with tuberculous nodules. Dr. DINGLE, the Medical Officer of Health, accompanied by Mr. G. ANDERSON, the Chief Sanitary Inspector, subsequently visited the slaughter‐house and agreed that the carcase was undoubtedly tuberculous and quite unfit for human food. Accordingly they seized the carcase which was subsequently condemned by order of the magistrate. When the defendant society was summoned before the Court, the counsel for the prosecution pointed out that when Inspector ANDERSON visited the slaughter‐house he asked the slaughterer why he had continued dressing the carcase when it was obvious to anyone that the meat was tuberculous. The condition of the carcase was not disputed by the defendants, but it was contended that the slaughter‐house was under the control of the manager and that no carcase would be removed until it had been inspected by him. In view of this contention for the defence, the magistrate held that it had not been proved that the meat was intended for human food, despite the fact that the diseased internal organs had been removed, and that the carcase had been dressed as if it were intended for use as food. If the decision in all such cases rested upon evidence of a similar nature, it is obvious that the Public Health Acts would become inefficient and useless, inasmuch as it would only be necessary for a defendant to state that any diseased meat found in his slaughter‐house was awaiting the inspection of the manager, and then the law could not interfere. Such a condition of things would obviously be unsatisfactory. The Stipendiary observed that the prosecution was justified, and commended the ability with which the Health Department carried on its work.

The purpose of this paper is to increase awareness and compliance of The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Guidance regarding cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS).

Assessments were offered routinely to consecutive inpatients with MS and to 20 per cent of outpatients. Once consent was gained, a cognitive assessment and subjective measure of cognition was completed with the patient, as well as a disability scale completed by the Medical Consultant. Individually targeted cognitive rehabilitation advice was provided using a bespoke advice leaflet. Afterwards, those who completed the assessment were asked to provide feedback on their experience.

The percentage that were classed as below average cognitively and the pattern of impairment was comparable to previous findings. Memory was rated the most affected by the largest number of MS individuals and a strong relationship was found between objective and subjective measures of attention. The average functional disability level was rated at 6.99. Evaluations for the service provided were positive; over half of the sample was unaware of NICE Guidance on this issue but 100 per cent would recommend this service and provided optimistic quotes.

This evaluation has enabled greater numbers to receive the recommended services and provided a useful baseline assessment of cognitive impairment and of patient attitudes towards this service. Resulting from this process, a new service framework has been proposed and presented at a local level. The advice leaflet developed for this process has been well received by patients and colleagues resulting in its submission to become an official NHS leaflet.

Developed clinical governance of NHS services to patients with MS in offering improved assessment and management of cognitive problems. This is in contrast to the national trend showing little improvement of MS care and the lack of NICE implementation by the MS Trust and Royal College of Physicians audit. Furthermore, the bespoke advice leaflet developed for patients and carers of MS demonstrates originality of information provided.

William Blackwood, the founder of the firm of the name, saw service in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London before opening in 1804 as a bookseller at 64 South Bridge, Edinburgh. Blackwood continued in his bookselling capacity for a number of years, and his shop became a haunt of the literati, rivalling Constable's in reputation and in popularity. His first success as a publisher was in 1811, when he brought out Kerr's Voyages, an ambitious item, and followed shortly after by The Life of Knox by McCrie. About this time he became agent in Edinburgh for John Murray, and the two firms did some useful collaborating. Blackwood was responsible for suggesting alterations in The Black Dwarf, which drew from Scott that vigorous letter addressed to James Ballantyne which reads: “Dear James,—I have received Blackwood's impudent letter. G ‐ d ‐ his soul, tell him and his coadjutor that I belong to the Black Hussars of Literature, who neither give nor receive criticism. I'll be cursed but this is the most impudent proposal that was ever made”. Regarding this story Messrs. Blackwood say: “This gives a slightly wrong impression. Scott was still incognito. William Blackwood was within his rights. He was always most loyal to Scott.” There has been some controversy as to the exact style of this letter, and it has been alleged that Lockhart did not print it in the same terms as Sir Walter wrote it. Blackwood came into the limelight as a publisher when he started the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine in 1817, which was to be a sort of Tory counterblast to the Whiggish Edinburgh Review. He appointed as editors James Cleghorn and Thomas Pringle, who later said that they realised very soon that Blackwood was much too overbearing a man to serve in harness, and after a time they retired to edit Constable's Scots Magazine, which came out under the new name of The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany. [Messrs. Blackwood report as follows: “No. They were sacked—for incompetence and general dulness. (See the Chaldee Manuscript.) They were in office for six months only.”] Blackwood changed the name of The Edinburgh Magazine to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, and became his own editor, with able henchmen in John Wilson, Christopher North, John Gibson Lockhart, and James Hogg as contributors. It was a swashbuckling magazine, sometimes foul in attack, as when it told John Keats to get “back to the shop, back to plaster, pills, and ointment boxes”. Lockhart had a vigour of invective such as was quite in keeping with the age of Leigh Hunt, an age of hard‐hitting. The history of Blackwood in those days is largely the history of the magazine, though Blackwood was at the same time doing useful publishing work. He lost the Murray connexion, however, owing to the scandalous nature of some of the contributions published in Maga; these but expressed the spirit of the times. John Murray was scared of Blackwood's Scottish independence! Among the book publications of Blackwood at the period we find Schlegel's History of Literature, and his firm, as we know, became publisher for John Galt, George Eliot, D. M. Moir, Lockhart, Aytoun, Christopher North, Pollok, Hogg, De Quincey, Michael Scott, Alison, Bulwer Lytton, Andrew Lang, Charles Lever, Saintsbury, Charles Whibley, John Buchan, Joseph Conrad, Neil Munro—a distinguished gallery. In 1942 the firm presented to the National Library of Scotland all the letters that had been addressed to the firm from its foundation from 1804 to the end of 1900, and these have now been indexed and arranged, and have been on display at the National Library where they have served to indicate the considerable service the firm has given to authorship. The collection is valuable and wide‐ranging.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.