Allan Leighton's spectacular turnround of Royal Mail's fortunes may look like a case study in raising productivity - ripe for replication in hundreds of boardrooms. But, in fact, only 20 per cent of the £220m in operating profits achieved over the past year came from productivity gains. Most was generated by higher stamp prices.

However the chairman, who regularly claims that Royal Mail's restructuring is the biggest change in any British industry for the past 20 years, had some words of wisdom for others seeking to cure ailing companies.