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Parallel to the theme of
our Golden Chambers, how the
rich and the
powerful individuals move the earth today? Individuals who are totally of
the same chemical composition as you and me, but are they smarter? Better
looking? Brighter? Most certainly, not
Some are even short, thin and ugly. What, then is the edge?
They’re Meaner, that’s
all. And if you want to be where they are, you have to be mean, or meaner,
too.
The good news is that once
you get started, it’s easy. Walking in the steps of the Florence master,
Stanley Bing will show you how to be all the Machiavelli you can be.
How to beat people who are
smarter than you are. How to make other people cringe and whimper when you
enter a room. How to get what you want when you want it whether you deserve
it or not. Without fear. Without emotion. Without finger-wagging morality.
One scalp at a time.
They do it. You can do it,
too.
WHO
IS MACHIAVELLI? -
Niccolo Machiavelli was born in Italy during the Renaissance, which took
place, for the most part, four or five hundred years ago. The circumstance
of his birth were relatively humble, but I don’t know that much about
them. That’s not my job. I’m here to give you the executive summary.
At
any rate, our prophet and master was a medieval bureaucrat who for the best
part of his career worked for a variety of departments reporting to the
Prince of Florence.
The
biggest corporate officer of all was Lorenzo de Medici. Smart, brutal, and
not a nice guy except when he felt like it. Mr. Medici has a court that was
very political, and at some point Machiavelli got on the wrong side of his
boss. Why? Who cares? It’s not any more germane than the reason Sumner
Redstone suddenly decided that he had to be rid of Frank Biondi, who to all
intents and purposes looked to be an excellent No. 2 and successor at
Viacom. He just did, that’s all. And that’s what counts.
Things
being what they were at that stage of the game, young Niccolo was remanded
to prison, where he sat around thinking of ways to get himself back to the
35th floor. Sitting and thinking, thinking and sitting,
Machiavelli, like so many prophets before him, was purified during his time
in the wilderness. And since he was a very good writer, he wrote.
What
emerged from the white heat of his imagination, parched from his long stint
in the career desert, was a brief, timely letter of advice to his prince on
how to become the ultimate senior manager. Medici liked what he read and
exercised a full measure of executive amnesia, and Machiavelli, robed in a
bright and shining success, was welcomed back to a nice corner office with
full honors. His fame has only grown in years since.
The
master has been gone for quite some time now, but his teaching has remained
with us and is now the core strategy by which a few generally quite short,
people have come to lead the rest of the human race to a variety of ends.
And for them there is but one message from which the entire font of wisdom
springs: The ends justify the meanness.
Don’t
like it? Get over it, you sniveling tree hugger. That’s the way things
are. If you haven’t the stomach for true success, that’s all right. Go
be a folk singer or a grphic designer or a social worker or some damn things
like that. The world has need for people like you as well.
To
be true to the vision of the master, we must be as selfish, narcissistic,
manipulative, driven, and creative in getting what we want as we can be, not
just in our important business actions, but where it really counts: in our
hearts. Not only CEOs can behave like princes. Lying, manipulation, displays
of false anger, displays of real anger, threats, blandishments, guilt
production of people who misperceive the senior officer as a father or
mother figure—all these tactics and more can be essential tools for people
at all levels of management, not just for the big guys.
You
can use them , too, if you’ve got the brains, the guts and the stamina.
And you ask the right question, the big one, the alpha and omega of the
power we seek:
What
Would Machiavelli Do …
Editorial
Review:
Machiavelli would feel at home in industry today. You don’t need a
birthright to be a modern prince—just an impulsive ruthlessness such as he
described four centuries ago while trying to get back into the good graces
of a Medici nobleman.
In
the book, Bing gleefully offers hard-boiled Machiavellian advice about whom
to fire in a downsizing (consultants first, secretaries last), how to make
employees love you (Give then perks… When they’re spending your money,
you own them”), and why it’s important that you kick ass (one of the
ways: “cutting them off curtly when they speak”) and take names (so
people know you’ll not only hurt them, you’ll also go after their
friends).
The
overriding lesson of this book is always to love yourself, never apologize
for anything you do, and when all else fails, recognize that the truth is
flexible, and so can be bent anyway you want.
In the book, Bing puts his ruthless advice into an easily digestible
how-to format and the only way you can tell it’s satire is when he mixes
the musings of Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot in with those of modern business
figures such as former Sunbeam CEO “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap. Firing people,
killing people—same rules, different game.— Lou Schuler
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