What Would Machiavelli Do?

by Stanley Bing

Book Overview

A sly send-up of the successful What Would Jesus Do? books, here is a satisfyingly mean light-hearted approach to business success--the Machiavellian way. Machiavellians may not get to heaven, but on earth they have a definite edge on the competition. In this pithy and discretely vicious guide, Stanley Bing shows how the Florentine master statesman and political thinker would handle today's myriad corporate challenges, seize the future by the throat,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0066620112
• ISBN13: 9780066620114
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Harper Business
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.5" x 7.1"

Customer Reviews

Bing Steps Out of The Corporate Box

Oh please, how can anyone with two brain cells to rub together not "get" this book? Like it or not, the "Machiavellian Way" is indeed Corperate America. Most people simply don't have the self-confidence, work ethic and guts to admit that this is exactly how they should behave in their work environment. To bring this subject to light in such a brazenly honest and humourous book is sheer genius, Bing steps out of the Corporate Lie Box and tells it like it is. I own a small business and I do not hire my employees so I can help them to build better lives for themselves, I hire them to make money for my company. Why does society glorify the workplace slug (think MSN Messenger commercial "I need fifteen copies of the A.S.A.P!") and revile the boss? Jelousy I think, because those slugs don't have the chops to succeed on their own and spend their pitiful lives riding other people's coat-tails complaining all the way. This book tells you one thing, if you want to be someone in this life, get off the pot and get to work. Do away with the sniveling babies in the office who should do themselves a favor and quit thier jobs and join the Peace Corps, the rest of us have work to do.

Enjoy for what it is

I agree with the reviewer from Raleigh, NC (3/26/00). The book is a satire -- great humor based on a perceived reality of corporate America today. To see it as ANYTHING else is to completely miss the theme (and value). To see it as a handbook to use today -- well, it proves there are many dangerous people out there. As for those who gave it one star (or less than four) -- maybe it WASN'T for everyone -- the serious business types it pokes fun at. And the bigger point is that if we can't see the humor in such otherwise tragic behavior (and beliefs), and if we can't laugh at this portrayal, then we do have serious problems. Forget the handbook -- enjoy the pointed satire.

Very Scary Truthful Humour

Makes you wonder whether everything you have learned since you were a child, from your parents, teachers, and even religious advisors, really applies today. Everybody talks about living a straight life, honor and values, but when you get out in the real world nothing seems to match. Sadly this is an X-ray of today's global world an how nobody gives a nut about anything but themselves. Ironic, funny and scary. I can say that before I read the book I practiced some things myself and they worked. People somehow react when you act like a spoiled brat.

The Machiavelli Mindset

Stanley Bing has done it again with What Would Machiavelli Do? A hilarious, insightful, and all-too-true send-up of corporate America in the era of looking out for Number One.

A satire or an instruction book?

This is a five-star book if you're interested in the decadence and peril of corporate culture, or if you like Stanley Bing. It's a SIX STAR book if you work for the real-life Bing and have learned anything at all from its pages."What Would Machiavelli Do" is both a satire of America's sadistic corporate culture AND an instruction book on how to be a ruthless, self-indulgent ladder-climber.It's very funny, except when you think too much about it. Bing acknowledges and accepts--even celebrates--the twisted idiosyncrasies of life among the suits; stuff that would make any blue collar worker or crunchy granola idealist puke. But it's all true, and that's the sad part. Bing sees it all for how strange it is, and it's his perception that enables him to both make fun of the system while succeeding in it. It's a strange contradiction. It's as if business were a mudhole and Bing glides along easily without ever getting dirty because he has a profound understanding of mud.Anyway, I liked it. The book put in writing a lot of what I thought about the business world, and a lot that nobody in upper management would ever admit to.