Promotion

Although The Prince is widely regarded as a classic on pragmatic political philosophy and, in addition to the ruler of a country, is valuable for all administrators, it does leave an important area of ruling untouched.

I am referring to the strategy of holding on to the power for someone who is promoted - from the governor of a small city to the king of the whole country, from a small team to the whole department, and so forth.

And, unfortunately, that's usually how a tragedy comes along nowadays. As the Peter principle states, all persons in a hierarchy are eventually promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent. To complicate the matter, tactics of managing a division with ten people is usually different from those for a whole department of one hundred. Niccolò Machiavelli did point out in his book that all dukes and mayors, who used to have the same status as the new king, will become skeptical; they continue to run their own place and are all ready to overthrow their new ruler if anything goes wrong.

But, in addition, there is another difficult problem: The city where this new king comes from.