P&G's board has been under a great deal of pressure from an activist investor who has made his views on the pace of the restructuring clear and vocal. Regardless of the merits, that begins to wear everyone down.

One of the dumbest corporate governance issues is whether to split the roles of Board Chair and CEO. That debate is now playing out on the front pages of business sections as shareholders will decide next week whether to take the chairman of the board title away from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon.

Shareholder activists are generally well-intentioned, but they're not always right. They don't always understand board-CEO dynamics or the firm-specific costs and benefits of splitting the CEO-chairman roles.

What I found was that there is something powerful about the way directors speak to one another, especially when they disagree. My interviews revealed two kinds of boardroom conflict — cognitive and affective — with very different implications for board performance.

An interview with Dr. Maya Angelou, renowned author. For more, read the Life's Work section in the May issue of HBR.

It is with much sadness we acknowledge the passing of Dr. R. Roosevelt Thomas. He was a friend of The Conference Board, and a frequent speaker at our conferences and council meetings.

So how does a visual designer tell a story with a visualization? The analysis has to find the story that the data supports. Traditional journalism does this all the time, and journalists have become very good at storytelling with visualization via infographics.

Making sure employees know what to do in a fast-breaking emergency isn't as easy as just sending a text or an email. It takes preparation as well as rapid execution.

Now that we've discussed when data visualization works — and when it doesn't, let's delve into what makes a successful data visualization. Although there are a number of criteria, including ease of comprehension and aesthetics, I'd like to explore the three that designers most often overlook.

Working women have been calling for more seats in the boardroom, more days of paid maternity leave, more corner offices, more money, and more — well, more! for a long time.