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Shakespeare and Management
From: Columbia University | By: John Whitney

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION | Can we imagine Shakespeare, or one of his famed characters, as a CEO? Columbia Business School professor and turnaround expert John Whitney has been reading and thinking about Shakespeare and his ideas for more than 50 years. Whitney co-authored Power Plays: Shakespeare's Lessons in Leadership and Management with Shakespeare and Co. founder Tina Packer. Juxtaposing excerpts from Shakespeare's plays with informal insights into management principles at work, Whitney shares how the bard's insights into humanity can be tools for managers today.

"Coriolanus," Act IV, Scene 5

Coriolanus:
    My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done
    To thee particularly and to all the Volsces
    Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may
    My surname, Coriolanus: the painful service,
    The extreme dangers and the drops of blood
    Shed for my thankless country are requited
    But with that surname; a good memory,
    And witness of the malice and displeasure
    Which thou shouldst bear me: only that name remains;
    The cruelty and envy of the people,
    Permitted by our dastard nobles, who
    Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest;
    And suffer'd me by the voice of slaves to be
    Whoop'd out of Rome. Now this extremity
    Hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope--
    Mistake me not--to save my life, for if
    I had fear'd death, of all the men i' the world
    I would have 'voided thee, but in mere spite,
    To be full quit of those my banishers,
    Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast
    A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge
    Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims
    Of shame seen through thy country, speed
    thee straight,
    And make my misery serve thy turn: so use it
    That my revengeful services may prove
    As benefits to thee, for I will fight
    Against my canker'd country with the spleen
    Of all the under fiends. But if so be
    Thou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes
    Thou'rt tired, then, in a word, I also am
    Longer to live most weary, and present
    My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;
    Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,
    Since I have ever follow'd thee with hate,
    Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,
    And cannot live but to thy shame, unless
    It be to do thee service.

"Coriolanus" and the great man theory of business

First let me set the scene and tell you about "Coriolanus," one of Shakespeare's lesser-known Roman tragedies. Coriolanus lived around 494 BCE, right after the Romans had overthrown the king Tarquinus Superbus and begun their republic. That's the underlying theme.


Coriolanus was a great warrior. From the time he was about 13 he had been in many battles. One of the battles was so terrific that he was named Coriolanus, after the city of Corioli, as during that battle he entered the gates of the city, alone, and defeated the enemy.


When he came back to Rome, they proposed him for consul, one of the two heads of the Roman senate. Yet the Roman tribunes--who were really just middle managers, the bureaucrats trying to preserve the republic and get away from the problems of monarchy--began to spread rumors that Coriolanus would be an autocratic dictator. And so even after he won the approval of the plebeians to become consul, the tribunes overturned the decision. To make a long story short, he was banished from Rome, went over to the enemy and then came back in an attempt to conquer Rome.


The point here is that power is relative. At one time in the play we see Coriolanus at the peak of his power. He's victorious at Corioli, and he's incredibly good at motivating troops to go into battle. He also has some other great qualities. He was offered one-tenth of the spoils of war. And he said no--he just wanted his share. One share, the same as everyone else.


And yet we see that, deep down inside, he is incredibly arrogant--and the arrogance is what overthrew him. Had he just done anything at all to try to, shall we say, "run for office," and be a little bit political, he would have been the consul of Rome, and everything would have been fine.


So, from the height of his power he goes into banishment, into a complete lack of respect from the citizens in Rome. We see him then move to the enemy camp--and, in the most humble of all settings, offer his naked throat, as it were, to his enemy, Aufidius, in order to join with him.


Now, I've spent about half my life in the business world, doing corporate crisis turnarounds. And you have to feel like Coriolanus at the gates of Corioli from time to time. When you're facing a hostile banker who's about ready to pull the plug, you have to suck it up and do the best you can to win this battle. I was chairman of a publishing company from 1981 to 1984--the shortest 15 years of my life. We owed the bank $4 million that was due that day, and we had $250,000 in cash. That's the mother of all turnarounds. And, believe me, I thought of Coriolanus when I was going down to the bank to try to negotiate that deal. I absolutely thought of him.


But you also have to realize that you can't do things alone. And I think that's the great lesson of Coriolanus. A great warrior, a great leader--but he did not understand that he could not do things alone. That he had to have the support of the people if he was going to be successful.

"As You Like It," Act II, Scene 7

Jaques:
    All the world's a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players.
    They have their exits and their entrances;
    And one man in his time plays many parts,
    His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
    Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
    And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
    And shining morning face, creeping like snail
    Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
    Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
    Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
    Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard;
    Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
    Seeking the bubble reputation
    Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
    In fair round belly with good capon lined,
    With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
    Full of wise saws and modern instances;
    And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
    Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
    With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
    His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
    For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
    Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
    And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
    That ends this strange eventful history,
    Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Every business is a stage

In "As You Like It," the character Jaques makes this famous saying: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." I have found, as a business leader and also as a professor, that showmanship is very important. Being aware of your presence is very important. To use the theatrical term: being aware of your persona, particularly if you're in a turnaround, when you have to motivate people. You have to keep people who really would rather be at a more stable company involved. But you have to be conscious of what you're doing. Many times you're as scared as they are, but you cannot wear your feelings on your sleeve. You cannot show that.


One good example is Larry Bossidy, who has just recently retired as chairman of Allied Signal, which is now Honeywell. He has a commanding presence. He's the last man in the world, by the way, who would like to be compared to an actor--because he's a solid, real man, through and through. But he is also aware, when he's standing up in front of people, of what he needs to do--to get them to understand his vision for the company and what he expects of them. He carries it off very well. Most of the leaders that I've seen are aware of this. This doesn't mean, by the way, that all leaders have to be great, charismatic public speakers. It means that they need to be conscious of what they're communicating to people--not just words, but the way they appear, and the way they stand, and the way they move.


Bossidy introduced the Six Sigma Quality Movement as his marching song when he went to Allied Signal. And I've studied the videotapes of what he's doing. In the first place, he's got a commanding presence, and he's aware of that--so he stands tall, and he just looks the part of a leader. Somebody you want to follow.


But then the next thing he does is relate to his audience. He knows that this is going to be a tough thing for them to do. There's a lot of technical things in Six Sigma that need to be done, so he communicates it, and he's going to be of assistance. He's going to help. He's going to give them the training they need. But then, toward the end, he makes it very clear that he expects results, in the way he carries himself, his voice and the confidence that he shows.

"Hamlet," Act I, Scene 3

Polonius:
    Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
    The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
    And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
    And these few precepts in thy memory
    See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
    Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
    Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
    Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
    Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
    But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
    Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
    Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
    Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
    Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
    Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
    Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
    But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
    For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
    And they in France of the best rank and station
    Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
    Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
    For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
    And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
    This above all: to thine ownself be true,
    And it must follow, as the night the day,
    Thou canst not then be false to any man.
    Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

Don't necessarily be true to yourself

In "Hamlet," Polonius was the lord chancellor for Claudius, the king of Denmark, who murdered Hamlet's father and married his mother. Polonius, according to the play, probably did not know that the king had murdered Hamlet's father to assume the throne. Nevertheless, he was reprehensible enough in his own right. He made that famous speech: To thine own self be true.


That has a nice ring to it. People feel really good when they hear that. But, when you take it apart, it's nonsense. And I think that Shakespeare put those foolish words in Polonius's mouth because he didn't like what Polonius did. Polonius spied on his daughter, he spied on his son, he spied on Hamlet and Hamlet's mother--he was a reprehensible character.


But the phrase "to thine ownself be true"--see, on the one hand, sure, you can be true to yourself. Adolf Hitler was true to himself--and probably so were Stalin and Chairman Mao. But I don't think you can make the case that it follows "as the night the day" that they were false to no other man.


I think the issue that Shakespeare was trying to make us think about is man alone versus man in society. We always have to make those accommodations. Well, now, does religion have the answer to this? I think that it has a partial answer, but religion by itself doesn't work too well. Look at the religious wars we've had through the centuries. People thought they were right and being true to themselves, and yet we had the Inquisition and things of that nature. That made them very much false to other people.


I looked at the legal system and the political system and determined that the central governance system really brings power to its centralized power again. And people at the top, while being true to themselves, often are not true to the people that they're leading.


In one of the more controversial parts of the book Power Plays, we say that the market system really probably helps answer that--along with religion and the governance system. And I talk about choices and consequences. We can choose to do things as long as we accept the consequences.


The point is, if you say "to thine ownself be true," you're making a choice. Let's use this example. Frank Sinatra sang that song "My Way." But let's look at Frank Sinatra--and, by the way, I'm a great fan of Frank Sinatra's. But look what he did to his family; look what he did to other people. He was "Chairman of the Board," and he was a tough guy. I'm saying that all the time that you think to yourself, "I'm being true to myself," you need also to think about: Am I harming someone else? Am I helping someone else? What is my relationship with someone else?


I think it's sort of selfish to think that a person can live alone and not have an impact on the society around him or her. And that's the major thing I'm trying to point out.