Odds are you've run across one of these characters in your career. They're glib, charming, manipulative, deceitful, ruthless -- and very, very destructive. And there may be lots of them in America's corner offices.
The standard clinical test for psychopathy, Robert Hare's PCL-R, evaluates 20 personality traits overall, but a subset of eight traits defines what he calls the "corporate psychopath" -- the nonviolent person prone to the "selfish, callous, and remorseless use of others." Does your boss fit the profile? Here's our do-it-yourself quiz drawing on the test manual and Hare's book Without Conscience. (Disclaimer: If you're not a psychologist or psychiatrist, this will be a strictly amateur exercise.) We've used the pronoun "he," but research suggests psychologists have underestimated the psychopathic propensity of women.
A rogue's gallery of the manipulative, abusive, grandiose -- and downright crooked -- executives who have strutted their way across the stage of American business.
In 21 years, Cirque du Soleil has grown from a funky band of street performers into a half-billion-dollar global company. It's a high-wire act of smart risk-taking, innovating around the clock, and staying uncomfortable.
As a band of former circus performers, Cirque du Soleil executives are uncommonly comfortable taking strategic risks. Here's how they turn in a high-flying performance.
A candid conversation with the CEO of General Electric about leadership, creativity, fear -- and what it's really like to run the world's most influential company.
No, not Dubya's. The president's first cousin Jonathan is an entrepreneur whose company, athenahealth, is trying to free doctors from the nightmare of insurance paperwork so they can get back to practicing medicine.
In the tortured business of health care, athenahealth founders Jonathan Bush and Todd Park have created a culture that is anything but. Here's how they do it.
Lush Cosmetics is a fast-growing $100 million brand, thanks to founder Mark Constantine's contrary product-development philosophy: Innovate like mad, then start over again.
They'd do it for free. They don't get discouraged by the inevitable hassles -- at least not for long. Four of our favorites tell you how to get a dream job, grow with one, and make it your own.
From Tuesdays With Mantu: My Adventures With a Nigerian Con Artist (2005), Rich Siegel's tale of stringing along, by email and phone, a dogged but dimwitted spammer.
When companies offer us, of all people, something for nothing, we wonder: What's the catch -- or, for that matter, the business plan? So we asked actual experts -- Ben McConnell, author of Creating Customer Evangelists (Dearborn, 2002) and Jennifer Rice of Mantra Brand Consulting -- to assess a few high-profile giveaways. How do we know they're working?
Evan Williams's Pyra Labs helped kick-start the personal publishing revolution with Blogger, the first user-friendly software for running a Web log. In 2003, Pyra was snapped up by Google, and Williams became the search giant's blogger-in-chief. Now Williams has founded Odeo, aiming to do for podcasting -- think of downloadable radio programming for your iPod -- what Pyra did for blogs. His bet: Your neighbor might be the next Howard Stern.
The pink-stucco and red-tile building, once home to a Red Lobster, blends easily into the urban sprawl of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A truck dealership is on one side, a nail salon across the street. But there's something different going on here at California Fresh Buffet.
With our November issue, Fast Company will celebrate 10 years of publication. Each month until then, we'll review one of our favorite editions from the first decade.
