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HAVING THEIR CAKE

Don Young and Pat Scott. Published by Kogan Page, 2004.

Young and Scott had been top managers in several companies, including Thorn EMI and Redland plc. Pat Scott had been director of Treasury and Tax and Don Young director of Organisation and Human Resources in both enterprises. In addition they have co-founded five successful consulting companies between them, including YSC Ltd, the world’s leading business psychology company.
'Having Their Cake' was stimulated by their direct experience of the growing dominance of the financial markets on the strategies of those companies and the degradation of corporate strategy into City-pleasing stories and numbers. They also observed the emergence of a close symbiotic relationship between top managers and the City as managers learned how to use investor pressures to enhance their wealth, particularly through share option and Long Term Incentive Plans.
Their experience, research for the book and subsequent investigations revealed a mainly hidden skein of relationships that amount to a collusive 'system' of interests which have come to dominate the industrial agendas - to the benefit of powerful insiders in the system and the disadvantage of all other stakeholders.
This section includes the Introduction to 'Having Their Cake' and two reviews drawn from many positive comments on the book.
After publication of the book, Don Young went on to develop this website and conduct several research studies with PARC, the Performance and Reward Centre and the School for Social Entrepreneurs.