The New Machiavelli: The Art of Politics in Business

In page 182 of "Dear Mr Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1269 Miles from Wall Street" (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2009), Janet Tavakoli wrote: "Always do business as if the other person is trying to screw you because most likely they are". Indeed, it's dog-eat-dog out there, and the sooner you realise it, the better. This book mines Machiavelli's The Prince for the timeless rules and stratagems that can help today's rulers survive and prosper in the jungle of greed and treachery that is commerce. The author enriches Machiavelli's text with scenarios from modern business, offering keen new insights into what motivate people. You'll learn the reasons why: (1). You should never believe your own publicity;(2). It's better to spread power than to centralise it; (3). Loyalty is not a reliable factor in the workplace; and (4). Great power is held by the "little People" in a business. Winston Churchill caught sight off all these when he said: "Live dangerously; take things as they come; dread naught, all will be well". Digest this book and you will understand Machiavelli's timeless principles of skullduggery.

For most of us, navigating the corporate and business world can be difficult, fustrating and even dangerous. Many people negotiate poor agreements with their bosses, clients and partners and in the end are hung out to dry. The perennial complaint of the casualties is that they just 'do not get it'.If you were not lucky enough to be born into a business family or sent to Harvard B-school, then you probably will need to make a personal study of the topic. This is a book that I would include on your mandatory reading list.With humor, European sensibilities and hardened, real-life experience, Mr McAlpine develops many parallels between Machiavelli's "New Prince" and today's business life. From the obliging employee to the use of contractors there are many examples that illuminate the undercurrents of the business world. At my company, I have a reading list of 10 books that I found to be profound and a powerfull aid to life's business lessons. Every new employee gets these texts and this book is included in that list.

I just finished this book. As a student of politics and a person who enjoys the art of politics there was little new to me in this book. What the book does do is summarize the basic Machiavellian points and directly apply them to various business scenarios. Had I know these things 20 years ago (before I learned them the hard way) sucess in my career would have been sooner and smoother. There are things in this book you will hate and things you will like. But they are all true. Whether you like politics or not, it is played every day in the office. For the informed, the game will be smoother and more sucessful. One thing however, don't share this book with your boss or co-workers. That would be very un-Machiavellian.

As said, this book goes way beyond any of the so-called instant books, as in "get-rich-now" or in 5 minutes.There is nothing much to add besides the fact that "the right stuff" in this book is quite self explanatory to anyone who pays attention to what he is reading, of course.

McAlpine offers a keen insight into Machiavelli's work "The Prince" as a basis for a survival strategy in business. McAlpine implores all who are in business that the most important part of any strategy is to first learn who your enemies are and who are not. He also contends that the second part of a good strategy is to learn how a business fails so that one can know how to make a business work. This work offers to a reader with little spare time the opportunity to gain a tremendous volume of knowledge in a shot period of time. Little time is dedicated to theory or case study. Rather, McAlpine spends much of the book imparting a vast bank of practical information.