MANAGEMENT AND MACHIAVELLI

Despite the sinister implications of the title, this is not an indictment of big business or the big brass; the author is a British management consultant extending his services--analyzing ""current and relevant management problems in the light of experience, observation and history,"" i.e. by the Machiavellian method. Historic parallels provide a key (but not conclusions); the contest between kings and barons is recapitulated in the growth of corporations; reformation is mandated by the manager (Pope) giving too little and taking too much; bad business leaders have predecessors in ineffectual rulers (King Lear, George III, Edward the Confessor); passing over can be eased by conferring titles (vice-president, director) or privileges (using the company car) in the manner of the British monarchy. Although the orientation is British, the insights are universal currency. Informed, informal, apposite, apt, Management and Machiavelli synchronizes the theory of running a business with political patterns, past and present; it comes out an oblique corporation Games People Play with instructions.