Power Plays: Shakespeare's Lessons in Leadership and Management

An unusual approach to business management explains why the issues fueling the intricate plots of Shakespeare's plays are the same issues that business leaders must contend with today, whether dealing with an indecisive Hamlet or a corporate Lear.

John O. Whitney, the director of the W. Edwards Deming Center for Quality Management and a professor at Columbia Business School, has served as CEO, COO, and director of several publicly held companies, large and small, and has distinguished himself in both management and academia as an expert on corporate transformations and turnarounds. Before joining Columbia Business School, he was on the faculty of the Harvard Business School. He was named by Business Week's "Guide to the Best Business Schools" as Columbia Business School's most outstanding professor, and was singled out by Business Week as one of the ten most sought-after professors in executive education. In addition to his course on Shakespeare and Leadership at Columbia, he uses Shakespeare as a leadership model in his popular executive seminars. Whitney has been a regular on CNNfn and CNN and is interviewed frequently on CNBC and other news networks. He lives in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.