After my story "Simplicity Minded Management" appeared in the Harvard Business Review a couple of years back, I received dozens of requests from managers, consultants, executives, and human resources professionals who wanted to learn about practical applications. I realized that organizations and their leaders needed more than just an appreciation of the importance of simplification -- they actually needed a handbook ...

GRANDSTANDERS IN THE CORNER OFFICE

From Predators to Icons: Exposing the Myth of the Business Hero By Michel Villette and Catherine Vuillermot Cornell University Press; $24.95 It will come as no surprise that a pair of French academics view the notion of heroic CEOs with Continental disdain. "As Europeans, we claim the right to present the history of entrepreneurs ...

Disgraced ex-New York Times reporter Jayson Blair talking to college students about ethics? What's next? The former head of Lehman Brothers on financial risk management? Such was the blogosphere's snarky tone last week when Washington & Lee University in Virginia announced Blair would speak ...

Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch was expected to return home Tuesday after spending 92 days in the hospital with a stubborn infection. Welch, 73, was to leave New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, according to posts he and his wife, Suzy Welch, made on their Twitter accounts. Welch was ...