All the world’s a stage, Shakespeare said, including all the corporate corridors and business boardrooms that account for so much of the drama of modern life.
The Shakespeare director Tina Packer and the takeover-and-turnaround management specialist John Whitney say: there’s more bottom line wisdom in the Shakespeare plays than in those typical B-school case studies. CEOs: learn the lesson of Othello’s failure when he passed up Iago for promotion: and pay close attention to the dynamics of your team. Middle managers on the rise: keep in mind the ill fated Richard the Second — who learned too late that power does not beget power.
Study Henry the Fourth, who had a strategy for being king, not just acting like he had a divine right to be the boss. Start-up dreamers, remember Hamlet’s line: “The readiness is all.” Stop shifting your paradigm and brush up on your Bard.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Tina Packer, Founder, President, and Artistic Director, Shakespeare and Company
John O. Whitney, Professor of Management, Columbia Business School.