In the new movie "Jobs" based on Walter Isaacson's biography, Steve Jobs comes across as an "enlightened being with an evil streak," as a former girlfriend put it. (He had got her pregnant, only to throw her out of his house saying "I have no time for this, I'm building Apple"; it would take him 17 years to recognize their daughter as his.) Jobs's life and supreme success as a technology innovator, and his repeated cheating of colleagues without whom he could not have done it, face us again with the age-old Machiavellian question: Do nice people finish last? Do you have to walk all over people to get ahead?
Researchers at the New School for Social Research in New York City found that if you read literary fiction for a few minutes, you will be better prepared for difficult negotiations, blind dates or interviews. Does literature build social skills, empathy and emotional intelligence? Is it time to add a little high-brow literature to the daily leadership regimen?
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