What Project Managers can lear n from Niccolo Machiavelli?

1. Fachhochschule Dortmund
University of Applied Sciences and Arts
European Masters in Project Management
What a Project Manager can learn from
the book “The Prince” by
Niccolo Machiavelli?
Author: Ujjwal Kumar Joshi
Date: May 2, 2013

2. Introduction to Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolo di Benardo dei Machiavelli, a Florentine politician, diplomat, philosopher, historian and
poet, was born in 3rd
May, 1469 in Florence, Republic of Florence. In present world, his name
symbolizes Power Politics and “Machiavellianism” resembles political ideologies, objectives and
theoretical conception of the rulers.
Political Power is a form of international relations in which self-governing entities protect their own
interest by threatening one another with military, economic or political aggression. It is essentially a
way of understanding the world of international relations. Nations struggle for the entire world’s
resources and it is to a nation’s advantage to be noticeably able to harm others. It prioritizes
national self-interest over the interest of international society or other nation. Some of the
techniques of power politics include conspicuous nuclear development, blackmail, the massing of
military units on a border, buck passing and so on.
The political or the practical philosophy of Machiavellianism, posing as political realism considers the
following:
• Of full power, enforced with violence
• Uncontrolled use of power
• The limited power purchase of the respective ruler
What a Project manager can learn from “The Prince”?
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote a famous book “The prince” which was highly influencing
and powerful to demonstrate the personality and traits of the real prince during the Renaissance. His
advices through his writings to be the successful leader of the territory was politically influenced and
was focused on the power based leadership. “Prince” (the actions of the great men) who used to
possess all the power of their territory was a responsible one to rule his land and was given a
managerial position.
Niccolo Machiavelli described himself as an Analyst, who has acquired knowledge of the actions of a
great man from a long experience of contemporary affairs and a continual study of antiquity. Thus,
he condensed his valuable personal experiences of politics into “THE PRINCE”. Through his words in
“THE PRINCE”, the leaders can learn how to acquire power and resist aggression in order to control
the sub-ordinates. He had stated a pessimistic view of his fellow man as,
“Men are in general ungrateful, fickle (indecisive), false, cowardly, covetous (jealous), but as long as
you succeed, they are entirely yours.”
According to this statement of Niccolo Machiavelli, a project manager should learn to tie a group of
people in a team by bounding them with certain rules and regulations. He/she should set certain
objectives and make others to follow him/her to achieve the success. On the other hand, a project
manager must guide his/her team members throughout the misconceptions and other problems
encountered during the project. Thus, a project manager can learn Leadership process.

3. Since management is related with the organizational process of managing people, resources and
system to accomplish the objectives. A Project manager is a person with all the responsibilities of
getting the project’s objectives fulfilled. There are various frameworks of project management and
components to demonstrate different traits of project manager (such as technical skills, behavioural
skills, and contextual skills) which is very important to be effective leader of the project.
Project comprises of various tasks and activities, diversified people, different situations, varieties of
uncertainties, and so on, where a Project manager has to show his/her skills and abilities to drive the
Project towards its success. After going through the book, “The Prince”, which is focused on strong
leadership traits, it would be helpful to implement some recommended suggestion for the project
management purpose:
Behavioural Competences
“Prince should imitate as a fox to be cunning and lion to be strength”
Niccolo Machiavelli suggest that a Leader or Project Manager should be always as strong as a lion
and as cunning as a fox because he/she is the one who is going to lose or win his/her position and
should be strongly focused to close concerned with the environment. He/she should be able to
analyse strength to overcome the weaknesses and explore the opportunities and grab the best to
mitigate the threats. Some-how it helps to develop situational analysis which is very helpful tool for
the project managers.
Time management
“One should not ‘enjoy the benefit of time’ but rather the benefit of one’s virtue and prudence,
because time can bring evil as well as good”
The important note for the project manager to learn from the book is to consider time as valuable
for the project success because of uncertainty related with future. The project manager should
utilize the opportunity of doing best with proper time management. He/she should be always ready
for challenges with time efficiency.
On the other hand, Project manager must analyse and prioritize the project activities and must know
the degree of urgency of the project activities that could, in future, lead to the entire project failure
if not conducted at appropriate time.
Change management
“Reforming an existing order is one of the most dangerous and difficult things a prince can do.”
This statement states that a Project Manager should convince his/her project team during the
changes in the project activities. As we know that, people are naturally resistant to change. So,
during the changes in any project activities, a project manager should provide some trainings and
information to his/her project team in order to make them to accept the change.
A project manager should deal with the changes that could be aroused during the project execution.
He/she should convince all the team to accept the changes as the changes are for innovation. If

4. he/she is not able to do so, the team members may deviate from the project objectives or lose their
interest and also the project may be lead to a opposite path bringing the complexity in the project.
Developing and enhancing individual skills and resources give a secured success
It is important to identify, analyse and enhance the own skills and knowledge rather than luck gives a
high tendency to achieve success for a long-term position. Project managers who are comprised of
inherent endeavours and tend to put their effort to develop their knowledge are always appreciated
by the stakeholders and are closely connected with project success.
Stakeholder Analysis
“Machiavelli advices monarch to have both internal and external fears and to keep the people
satisfied”
As a project leader, one should identify, analyse and prioritize the key stakeholder associated with
the project. Stakeholder could be internal or external. They are really important part in the project.
Project manager is responsible to create the harmonized situation to minimize the conflicts and to
generate positivity towards the project. They might bring both positive and negative value in the
project so they need to be deal with properly.
Trust-worthiness
“A prince should appear to compassionate, faithful to his word. But his disposition should be such
that, if he needs to be opposite, he knows how.”
As stated in above saying, a project manager should be able to keep his promises among the team
members. He/she should convince his/her team members on the basis on evidence and other
proofs. Moreover, there should be trust-worthy working environment among the team to create
synergy for the success of project. He should possess convincing ability to achieve their support for
himself/herself.
Developing Project as a Principality
“A self-sufficient prince is one who can meet any enemy on the battlefield. So, he should have sound
laws and strong military forces.
Unlike the prince, project manager should also take a project as a principality to rule over it in order
to get effective result. He/she should arm his project with proper allocation of resources, and pre-
planned force to win the project success. He/she should be able to accept any kind of challenges and
face them with his/her own tactics along with the support of team members so that it would add
value to the project objectives.
Fitness (Physically and mentally)
“The two activities Machiavelli recommends practicing to prepare for war is physical and mental.”

5. Project management is not only about the skills and knowledge but the ability to implement those
acquired skills and knowledge with consistency. So, it is important to learn that to get the effective
result one should be healthy with both fitness (Physical and Mental). Project managers should be
encouraged mentally to maintain his/her consistency in the areas of managing projects.
Risk management strategy
Machiavelli compares fortune to a torrential river that cannot be easily controlled during flooding
season. In periods of calm, however people can erect dams and levees in order to minimize its
impact.
As explained in “THE PRINCE”, there are various risk mitigation strategies that is important for a
project managers to take into consideration for a proper management. So, like in a book prince were
suggested to create some strategy and tools to control the uncertainty as much as possible which is
useful for the project managers to mitigate the risk associated with the project.
Machiavellian personality (To assess traits and personality of person)
The development of this model to relate with the human psychology and to identify and analyse the
behaviour and personality of the person was influenced by the book “the prince” written by
Machaivelli. Christie and Geis defined and categorised the elements to differentiate the nature of
human with two perspectives:
High Mach Low Mach
Resistant to social influence Susceptible to social influence
Focuses on Task Focuses on person
Initiates and control structure Accepts and follows structure
High Mach as a project manager possess following qualities:
1. Commanding
2. Straight forward
3. Problem solving abilities
4. Negotiation skills
5. Communication skills
6. Self-assurance
As a Project Manager, he/she should be committed towards the project activities. Sometimes, it is
preferable to be diplomat but, as a leader, he/she should be always focused and straight-forward for
a rational and wise decision. There are various problems associated with projects, which should be
identified, analysed and solved systematically. The abilities and potentialities, as a problem solver,
are the qualities for a successful project manager.
Besides these, a project manager should act as a Mediator to maintain the level of understanding
and harmonize the situation with effective negotiation and communication with all the stakeholders

6. of a project. His/her interpersonal skill is a weapon to boost up his confidence and give him
assurance to accomplish his/her objective.
In conclusion, the book “THE PRINCE” can be considered as a framework for the project
management, which can be taken as guidelines for influencing and motivating the potential project
managers. While going through this book, we found the above mentioned dimensions that the
project manager should consider and emphasize to be successful.
References
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli
books.google.de/books?isbn=0979415403
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm

7. of a project. His/her interpersonal skill is a weapon to boost up his confidence and give him
assurance to accomplish his/her objective.
In conclusion, the book “THE PRINCE” can be considered as a framework for the project
management, which can be taken as guidelines for influencing and motivating the potential project
managers. While going through this book, we found the above mentioned dimensions that the
project manager should consider and emphasize to be successful.
References
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli
books.google.de/books?isbn=0979415403
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm