Management: The Corporate Cezanne

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In his new role, Simon spends most of his time searching for companies with qualities that make them attractive to move into. He calls upon a topflight staff of experts to help him chart strategy. Among them is Stella Russell, a onetime Simon assistant who is now a director of Hunt, Wheeling and McCall's and who is known inside the company as "the translator" because of her facility for explaining to others what Simon is trying to say. The others: Hunt Vice Chairman Jack R.

Clumeck, Simon's itinerant board sitter and a funnel for the thousands of scouts and tipsters who now besiege Simon; Brokers Felix Juda of Sutro and Gustave Levy of Manhattan's Goldman Sachs & Co.; Graham Sterling, a Los Angeles lawyer and an expert on the intricacies of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and Hunt President Carl Kalbfleisch and Executive Vice President Harold M. Williams, who help Simon plan overall strategy.

Ulcers for 30 Years. Simon usually prefers power to title when he seeks to win a company, does not always insist even on board membership. "I prefer not being on the board of directors," he says, "if I can have a real and honest communication with the management. I don't think getting a seat on the board is tremendously significant, even in terms of getting information about what goes on inside a company. There's an awful lot of information that flows around Wall Street." When Simon is frustrated in his attempt to effect reforms, however, the qualities that have made him one of the most feared businessmen in the land quickly come to bear.

Behind closed doors—and occasionally in public—Simon can become pretty rough with the men who get in his way. He knocks heads together mercilessly, usually replaces the old team with his own men (he is an unabashed raider of other companies' personnel, has already hired away 15 executives for Wheeling from other steel companies), gets so impatient that he frequently pounds the table and yells. Says Jean Fowles, whose husband sold Manhattan's Duveen Gallery to Simon for $15 million last year: "The thing about Norton is that he's terribly impatient with stupidity. When someone insists that 'this is a good way because we've always done it this way,' he simply can't stand it." Simon's public attack on Wheeling Steel President William Steele ("Not even a good vice president") was unprecedented for its bitterness, has helped make the entire steel industry wary of Simon. Says Norman Cousins: "I've been telling him lately: 'Norton, remember, pay some heed to your image.' "