Niccolo Machiavelli was born in Florence Italy in 1469, the son of an attorney. The time period was a rough one in Italy. At the time the peninsula was dominated by warring city states. Also, and I don't think there is a modern equivalent, the Pope went to war to acquire power. There was also conflict between the Medici and Borgia families. In other words, there was lots of conflict and no war was simple.
Machiavelli gained some authority, notably at one point he was in charge of the militia of Florence. This helped shape some of his opinions on the value of mercenaries, no doubt. He was also active in diplomatic works. In short, he came by his views of the state by experience.
He was apparently a playwright of some account by history remembers him for 'The Prince', our piece for this month. 'The Prince' was written to one of the Medici family and became both controversial and well read. He has been memorialized with the adjective 'Machiavellian'.
I was looking forward to reading The Prince again as I was expecting to find a significantly richer understanding of the text now that I have become a foreign affairs professional. :) Ironically, all I could think of while I was reading the chapter “Mixed Princedoms” was about how everything he was saying applied to corporate business in our modern world more than interactions between modern nation states. He argues that newly acquired princedoms that share similar language and culture will be easier to maintain than a princedom acquired with a different language and culture. He argues the importance of the prince moving and residing in the new princedom to secure the loyalty of the people and to catch problems early when they can be solved rather than when it is too late. Other than destroying the bloodline of the previous ruling family, most of the recommendations he makes can be easily applied to corporate management, mergers and acquisitions. In my corporate days, it was interesting to see both internally with my company and externally with major customers the various challenges faced and mistakes made by managers and senior level leaders during an acquisition. Often target companies are looked at for their market share position, a specific product line, etc., with no real consideration for the different cultures of the companies or the major differences of the companies. It often seem like everyone would assume that the one big win of from the acquisition would overshadow all of the other smaller challenges facing the smooth merger and integration process. Some were very successful, others not as much. Machiavelli’s guidelines would likely be helpful in many areas of consideration for modern corporate M&A, but would not be a reliable overarching strategy as so much depends on specific circumstances. I would guess that The Magnificent Lorenzo Di Piero De’ Medici probably felt the same way about the Prince with regards to running his princedom in the midst of Italy’s free market of warring states.
ReplyDeleteThis is an outstanding point. I've been trying to figure out just how much 'The Prince' holds up in modern times, with our popular elections but I hadn't thought of the corporate similarity. I've never personally been through a merger but I've gotten close peeks into companies that were merging and it's often a horrorshow. Maybe they do some good ol' Mac to help them out.
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