‘‘I AM NOT WHAT I AM’’ – DESTRUCTIVE EMOTIONS IN AN ORGANIZATIONAL HIERARCHY: THE CASE OF OTHELLO AND IAGO Chris Poulson, Joseph Duncan and Michelle Massie ABSTRACT It may be daunting for those who do not know or care for Shakespeare, but Othello is a compelling case study of destructive emotions in an or- ganizational setting. Iago’s chilling words from The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice are the title of this chapter, ‘‘I am not what I am’’. Passed over for promotion, Iago wreaks havoc in the personal and pro- fessional life of the General who chose not to appoint him. We use this play as a case study of destructive emotions – specifically jealousy, anger, and shame – in an organizational hierarchy. The premise is that those who are passed over present a special managerial problem, one that we address at the end of the chapter after carefully looking at how revenge came to manifest from the emotions of the principal characters in the play. In addition, this chapter contributes to the growing literature on specific emotions as experienced in organizational life as well as advancing the links between management and the humanities by using one of Shake- speare’s best-known tragedies as a case study. The Effect of Affect in Organizational Settings Research on Emotion in Organizations, Volume 1, 211–240 Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1746-9791/doi:10.1016/S1746-9791(05)01109-0 211 PROLOGUE: ‘‘OTHELLO – A MODERN TALE’’ The Venetian Company is a venerable firm of long tradition, the ownership of which is closely held among the elites of a single geographic region. All of the executives and management come from that region despite the company’s rather extensive international holdings and trading activity. A rare exception to the case is a very successful and highly regarded African (Mr. O. Tell) who has established an outstanding track record as a senior line manager. He is an able, confident man of middle years who has recently married (in secret) Dee, a much younger woman and the daughter of a prominent pillar of the community and an influential member of the Board of Directors. For many years, Mr. Tell has been ably served by Mr. I. Go, a competent man, regarded by his superior as honest and trustworthy. Go has worked his way up through the ranks to become Mr. Tell’s right hand man. Go is distressed and humiliated when he feels that he has been unjustly passed over for a promotion to become Tell’s second in command. Despite the intercession of three of the elites on Go’s behalf, Tell, himself an outsider, selects another outsider (Mr. Cass), an accountant with experience neither in the field nor in the company. Go feels that the post was his through both position and service, and vows his revenge. Machiavellian by nature, Go sets about to destroy Tell not by confrontation or violence but by manipulation. His first plan is to get Cass drunk and then cause him to lose his newly gained position through a drunken blunder. He plans then to maneuver Mr. Tell into believing that Cass is having an affair with Tell’s young and beautiful wife, Dee. His plans succeed. Enraged, Tell promotes Go into Cass’s late position and accepts Go’s offer to be Cass’s ‘‘undertaker’’. ‘‘Honest’’ Mr. I. Go (as Tell – unable to see beyond the surface – refers to him) has Tell where he wants him. Go’s plans work almost to the end but the final consequences are beyond even Go’s warped imagination. The contract on Cass’s life fails and Go is exposed – but not before Tell kills his own wife in a cold, jealous rage. Rather than be arrested, Tell takes his own life, clearing the way for the immediate appointment of Cass as his successor and the arrest of Mr. Go. INTRODUCTION ‘‘OB or not OB’’ is the waggish title of a 1996 article by a London Business School professor in which he asserts that it was Shakespeare that was the originator of the vaunted Harvard Business School case method (Barwise, 1996). Perhaps. But a more likely explanation is a bit of inter-university competitive humor. Although the Bard has had a lot attributed to him – the eminent Shakespearean scholar Bloom (1991) has suggested much grander links, ‘‘What we think of as Freudian psychology is really a Shakespearean invention, and, for the most part, Freud is merely codifying it. This shouldn’t be too surprising. Freud himself says: ‘‘The poets were here before me,’ and the poet in particular is necessarily Shakespeare’’. There has been a CHRIS POULSON ET AL. 212