It’s a story we’ve now come to expect. A high-flying executive leading an important industry turns out to be a bully, a toxic influence on their workplace, and a bad manager. Troy Young, the former chief executive of Hearst, is only the latest in a long line of top executives to face accusations before falling on his sword. Like many senior officials, the allegations against Young include...
In June 1989, Donald Trump picked up a copy of Business Week magazine and read an article. Genesco, a footwear company, was in trouble. The banks had insisted on the appointment of a new chief executive. They had settled on John Hanigan, a turnaround artist best known as an asset stripper. In The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz describes Hanigan in Donald Trump’s words: “He came to companies...
The year was 1497 and Leonardo da Vinci was working on a fresco in the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. The fresco was only 460cm by 880cm but da Vinci’s reconstruction of the Last Supper still wasn’t complete after two years of work. A prior at the monastery wrote to the artist to complain about the delay. How could one small part of one wall take so long to paint, he demanded. Da...
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