This is an excerpt from my latest book Dear Hannah: 70 Methods I Used and Abused to Change Who I Am.
Reading the 48 Laws of Power as a 16-Year-Old
Date: January 18, 1999
Age: 16
Location: La Jolla, CA
Subject: The 48 Laws of Power
Hi Hannah, I don’t think this is what you had in mind when you got me hooked on self-improvement. I stumbled upon The 48 Laws of Power while randomly browsing at Barnes & Noble, and I think it may be the most profound thing I’ve read since How to Win Friends and Influence People.
I just joined a new start-up called go2 whose office is in this shiny, black building, which has a subtle green tint to it. I can’t help but think of the emerald city from The Wizard of Oz whenever I enter. However, once you get inside the office, you notice how starkly unfinished and bare it feels. There are cardboard boxes and partially assembled desks everywhere. People keep changing rooms and titles, and I see fresh faces every day. It’s bewildering, and I’ve been struggling to carve out my relevance here, considering I can only work part-time during the week and a little bit on the weekends.
Yes, I have stock options, and I am one of go2’s first employees, but my role is hardly secure. The whole thing used to just be the three of us: me, my business partner Derek, and our CEO Lee Hancock. When Derek and I started out consulting for Lee, everybody was much closer. I remember once he treated us to lunch at the La Jolla golf club, and behind where he sat was a giant, solid window that looked out to the beach. I knew that this was partially intentional, as if he wanted to say, “One day, this could be yours too.” He treated me like an equal and spent more time talking about high-level business strategy and his life story than he did about technical issues with the website.
But now that I’m an employee with a salary and am commuting after school, I hardly see him. Instead, Lee hired a CTO named Calvin, who is a burly man with red facial hair and a temper to match. Lee brought him in because he was an accomplished programmer, who could theoretically provide a technical vision for the company. But this hire only seems like a demotion for Derek and me.
Tensions came to a boiling point when I walked into the office to discover Derek and Calvin had been arguing for two hours about whether to purchase Linux or Windows servers. Although Calvin tried to appear calm, his ears were red with muffled anger. Derek was indignant and looked at me hopefully.
Instead of jumping right into the fray, I thought immediately of The 48 Laws of Power. This book has captivated me for the past couple weeks with simple fables and historical anecdotes that have large implications. Some stories read like an adult version of Aesop’s Fables, with playful titles like, “The Farmer, the Snake and the Heron.” But the tone and message is all Machiavellian. The first law I read, Law 1 — Never outshine the master — was immediately relevant to the situation:
Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite — inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.
I thought of this when I saw Derek and Calvin arguing. Instead of taking Derek’s side (who I agreed with completely), I imagined that Calvin was my teacher, someone whom I could learn from. I leaned in and listened intently. Every time he made an unreasonable justification for spending $30,000 on software licenses for Windows, I raised my eyebrows like I was enlightened by his ideas. Whenever he mentioned, “This is how we did it at such-and-such company,” I nodded my head in agreement.
Derek was dumbfounded by my behavior. At a loss for words, he abruptly got up and went to his cubicle. I didn’t react, and I just acted like everything was cool. Derek thought the point of the Linux vs. Windows debate was to figure out which side was right, when really it was to validate Calvin’s place in the hierarchy.
Another law I’ve been applying is Law 37 — Create Compelling Spectacles:
Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power — everyone responds to them. Stage spectacles for those around you, then, full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.
I’ve been making sure to do as many Flash projects as possible, creating swooshes and flying lines of text to explain go2’s nascent product ideas. When I throw in a little bit of techno music, and present the complete package, it really impresses Lee and Calvin. Derek, on the other hand, who sneers at the mention of The 48 Laws, is more interested in servers. He’s concerned about what’s happening behind the scenes, making sure we’re using open-source software. As a result, he’s last to receive praise, if he receives any at all.
Although The 48 Laws draws from war and politics, it really should be treated as a book about mastering the office.
- Phil
I became intoxicated with the techniques from The 48 Laws just like I had when I motivated my teammates in ThinkQuest. The promise is so simple and seductive: Make a small change here, and watch the results magically unfold over there. Never mind what happens between A and B.
When I started applying The 48 Laws outside of the workplace, it sapped the joy out of socializing. I couldn’t talk to a friend without some cynical narrative running in the back of my mind. At the same time, the skills I developed in office politics have lasted a lifetime. I wonder if the office is just more suited to treating social transactions as simply that: a means to an end.
This is an excerpt from my latest book Dear Hannah: 70 Methods I Used and Abused to Change Who I Am.
For Philip’s 14th birthday, Hannah gave him Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, which kicked off a life-long obsession with self-improvement. Over 16 years, Philip wrote 82 letters to Hannah describing every book, pop psych article, and method that he used — or abused. Dear Hannah is either a cautionary tale about self-improvement, or it is a filter for the 10% of self-help that may actually change your life.
PHILIP DHINGRA is a President’s Scholar from Stanford University, where he received his B.A. in Mathematical and Computational Sciences. In addition to authoring books on life change, he develops best-selling iOS apps including Nebulous Notes and The Creative Whack Pack (a collaboration with creativity pioneer Roger von Oech). Philip divides his time between Austin, Texas, and San Francisco, California.
