TORC

The Cuckoo Clock scene from The Third Man - Joseph Cotten & Orson Welles

The title of Peter Mandelson’s recent autobiography, The Third Man, is a clever take from the 1949 movie of the same name, starring Orson Welles as the shadowy Harry Lime. 

The movie is a film noir classic, renowned for the Graham Greene screenplay, the Anton Karas theme music, and director, Carol Reed’s oblique angle shots; the latter famously prompting Hollywood’s Willie Wyler into making him a gift of a spirit-level – ‘to help keep the camera straight next time!’ … (as retold by Reed in Charles T. Samuels Encountering Directors book, 1972). 

The Machiavellian reputation
It also gives us those much-quoted lines (apparently added by Welles himself), that Harry uses to console his friend, Holly, in explaining his move to the dark side: 

‘Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.’ 

The quote encapsulates the old dictum of the end justifying the means – and Mandelson’s publishers are obviously using these dark side resonances from the movie to reinforce their subject’s own Machiavellian reputation. 

Machiavelli & contemporary management
How amusing Machiavelli himself would find it all – that is, of course, assuming his fellow Florentine, Leonardo Da Vinci, could have done him the needful and invented a time-machine to get him the required 500 years into the future! 

And, if he did actually succeed in visiting, what would Machiavelli make of current management practices, one wonders? 

Doubtless, he would be intrigued to see how so many of the ideas, from his own dimly distant and brutish times, have taken hold – in areas, such as mergers and acquisitions, change management and competency frameworks. 

Machiavelli on mergers & acquisition
He would certainly be impressed with all the talk about synergy and overlap that so dominates takeover announcements today – and, particularly, with the manner and speed, corporations set about deciding which employees to retain or let go. 

And, he would be no stranger either to the differing categories involved, whether hostile or friendly – and to the competitive drivers at work: ego, dominance & survival. 

Machiavelli on change management
He would be amazed how his words on the difficulties of change have achieved doctrinal proportions: 

“And let it be noted that there is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to set up as a leader in the introduction of changes.  For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only the lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.   This lukewarm temper arises partly from the fear of adversaries who have the laws on their side and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who will never admit the merit of anything new, until they have seen it proved by the event”. 

And, how fitting to his celeb status, would he find how his belief, in immediate overwhelming force, has been rebranded - with its very own sound-bite/buzz word: shock & awe. 

Machiavelli on competency frameworks
But the all-out adoption of competency frameworks by organizations is probably what would give him the most satisfaction: he would find it particularly flattering to see how the logical layout and breakdown he deployed in writing The Prince is so closely mirrored in these structured approaches to leadership development.   

For, Machiavelli loved imitators and would surely allow himself to take a bow, in recalling his own words:   

 ’A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme’ 

Machiavelli & the misplaced connotations 
Over the years, Machiavelli’s name has been wrongly equated with the tyrants, described in his writings. 

Here, one line from the introduction to The Prince has proven strangely prophetic: 

‘you will see how I suffer a great and continued malignity of fortune’ 

A recent biography claims that this is just a bad case of ‘shooting the messenger’. 

How ironic then to see how well the messenger’s message has actually survived. 

PS. For  related Torc articles, please click on the following links:
1. Rebuilding Group Morale
2. Trapattoni: some lessons in management
3. Flow, Mojo & Drive
4. The Leader as Teacher
5. Ready, Aim, Fire 

PPS. For related training programmes, please click on the following links:
1. Leading with Emotional Intelligence
2. Listening & Empathy
3. Leading with Resilience & Optimism