Hacker News Books

Robert Greene writes books on this, on how to tackle conflicts. 48 Laws of Power and 33 Strategies of War specifically.

In this case, it's probably just best to tolerate it. It's tempting to try to discourage that kind of behaviour but it rarely works.

If I were to choose one that benefitted me the most, directly, I would pick "33 Strategies of War" by Robert Greene.

I'm reading The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene now and am enjoying it, I have also previously read the 48 Laws of Power by him which is written in a similar fashion. Very extensive and uses a lot of historical examples from both military and other fields such as politics and business.

Robert Greene's 33 Strategies of War.

Before that I'd avoid conflicts, especially by more aggressive people. After reading that book, I started actively finding ways do deal with conflicts. A good deal of the book is not simply 'combat' but also dealing with starting conflicts, extended conflict, unconventional strategies, when to withdraw, and so on.

The 33 Strategies of War. - Robert Greene

I am too nice a guy. I am also the leader of my company. The two don't mix. You have to become somewhat detached, and somewhat of an asshole in order to effectively lead. I found out the hard way that sometimes you have to say to your people "because I freekin said so" instead of trying to be nice to them and let them make the mistake you know they are going to make (silly me, I forgot this was a business, not a community college).

The hardest thing for me, by far, has been to fire someone. I did it two months too late, and everyone in my company suffered for it. My lesson? Be an asshole at the right time.

I love the book I mention because the lessons apply everywhere in business: You need to motivate, you need to earn the respect of your people, you need to be decisive, you need to see the bigger goal, and you need to delegate correctly and put together the right structure in your company's leadership.

I've learned a lot from this book. Guess what? Our productivity is about 2-3 times higher now (no joke, 200% to 300% more work gets done every day). We're running fine, everyone is pulling their weight, and everyone is happy to be making professional progress. My own lesson from this book was that I had to get some balls, crack the whip, and turn from a fellow programmer to a leader and mentor. Your lesson from the book might be different, but I bet that almost everyone has something to learn from this book.

33 Strategies of War. It's good for dealing with any and all types of conflict, including conflicts with yourself. Half of the book is unconventional techniques most people don't even think of.

Similarly themed is Extreme Ownership, which covers leadership in chaotic situstions.

Militaries are designed to deal with the chaos of war, and a lot of principles apply to the chaos of software engineering too.

The Foundation Series is my favourite sci-fi series, followed by Rendezvous at Rama.

Currently reading the 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene (Author of the Art of Seduction). I quite enjoy the way he writes, it's filled with historical examples and the sidebars on each page are filled with quotes from all the ages. Similar style to "Think and Grow Rich"

Summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_33_Strategies_of_War

33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene.

It's about dealing with conflict. Resource management, especially in regards to conflict. Emotional management on a group level. And it applies to conflicts with yourself as well.

All of us have some kind of conflict to deal with, whether it's an unruly client, bullying boss, emotionally draining relative, burnt out staff. The book covers strategies in dealing with them. It even starts with covering how to identify people who may be enemies acting as friends.

While it sounds aggressive, a lot of it covers on how wars are best won without ever having any fighting. Sometimes you can just discourage people from attacking you. Sometimes you have to decide to withdraw, to engage, to intimidate, or to handle it from a much higher level, distracting or draining their resources before they can attack you.

I'd recommend the book 33 Strategies of War, by Robert Greene.

I think it does what you're trying to accomplish - winning conflicts. The book's philosophy is to be like Athena, not Ares. You don't want bloodlust, but you do want to be just aggressive enough to win conflicts, and yet not put others off. The solution to many conflicts is not just confrontation, but things like alliances and other unconventional warfare. Sometimes you want to win wars without firing a shot. You have boxing training, and learning to be patient while being punched in the face lends you to more options.

The first chapter/strategy is to Declare War. It's good to let go of grudges. But sometimes, something is just getting in the way, slowly chipping away at you. You have to commit to a war until you either win or lose. You shouldn't just try to win a single battle, but rather win or lose several battles in a sequence where you wouldn't have to fight any more battles. Sometimes you just want to establish yourself as a porcupine and discourage them from bullying you.

On a slightly different path is The 50th Law, also by Robert Greene, which is an annotated biography of 50 Cent, and how he built a persona to survive in a violent world.

There's training that could help you too. A lot of leadership/teaching training removes fear of embarrassment, though they're usually not cheap. You'd have to find a very outspoken trainer, someone who resembles Tony Robbins, not your typical consultant in a suit.

The 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene. It's mostly non-obvious ways to handle conflict.

It's pretty easy to keep grinding more skill and effort. But it can be terrifying to deal with conflict, aggressive people, manipulative clients, competitors, and it can really discourage you along your career. Most people end up avoiding those things and running or hiding from problems. Trying to bring it up with management can often end up with you getting outmanoeuvred.

The book is great because it covers ways to disable threats. Most people are inept in conflict - they just dump more energy at it until they win or run out of energy. The book teaches techniques like counter-attacking, using your opponent's aggression against them, when to be more aggressive, when to be diplomatic, when to retreat, when to hesitate. How to drag an opponent into a long drawn conflict and kill them with attrition. Or how to intimidate them by making them feel trapped. The goal is to resolve and end conflicts quickly, maybe even turn an opponent to your side.

Like martial arts, it would be best to not have to use it. But I've had to several times, especially as an entrepreneur. It's also one of those things that give you enough confidence to handle certain obstacles, opening more doors and more choices that way.

I feel like a lot of people in the comments have not read the book itself, only summaries and reviews.

The book does not strike me as ruthless and manipulative. It's a history book. It gives you Pattern A, what others have done in response to Pattern A, and a reversal in which this pattern/solution may go wrong. It's probably the least pragmatic of Greene's books. If you're looking for office politics, try 33 Strategies of War.

48 Laws of Power is more suited for highlighting reasons why people might be envious of you, and ways to look humble. It's suited for stress management and realizing things are not as out of control as you think. You'll not get this from any infographics though.

Sunmaries are not there to prevent you from reading a book, but to highlight which books are worth reading.

Most books spend about 80% of the content defending an idea. Something like 33 Strategies of War can easily be summarized into 15 minutes, but it will lose its charm, as the book relies on historical storytelling to get its points across.

Completely rational and smart people can form an irrational group. Since you have a network of people, they could form such a group, that everyone's individual talents are cancelled out.

This is why, I don't believe in complete democracy at work. There has to be a clear leader, who is not afraid to make decisions, to see them through, also is accepted by others to make decisions (in most cases at least), and is someone, who finishes stuff.

Last week I read a great way to assemble such a group (at least it sounds like a good way to me). In the book '33 Strategies of War', there was a chapter on how George Marshall, an American military leader trained young proteges, and picked the ones, who were the most like him. After putting these young people to test, he gave them key roles and placed them in key positions. He, then encouraged them to also train their own subordinates.

Basically he 'cloned' himself, and then showed his 'clones', how to 'clone' themselves too. Thus he was able to create a new, more efficient group of leaders, without confronting leader with large egos.

Robert Greene's books: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law, and The Laws of Human Nature.

Stealing the Corner office by Brendan Reid

Assorted works of Niccolo Machiavelli and Balatazar Gracian.

It will be hard to impossible to make transition even after reading these books, but at least you can detect and avoid problems at work. Or at best set up a firewall around you.

Lastly expecting goodness from people is wrong. The fact of the matter is people are bad and do what is good in their interests even if it hurts the whole world, be prepared, be ready and have means to take care of yourself.

The 33 Strategies of War & The 48 Laws of Power.

Both of these are history books, but don't expect just the cliches of Napoleon and Genghis Khan. Robert Greene covers case studies throughout history, from Roosevelt to Gandhi, to some much lesser known figures of history.

Basically a lot of us deal with conflict. One book covers how to deal with politically, and the other one more directly. It's not all about attacking, but rather strategies around war - defense, deterrence, motivating your side, keeping the (moral) high ground, getting your adversaries to work for you.

The 33 Strategies of War (Robert Greene)

agreed. there's a lot you can learn from "business as war" analogies -- when I was doing competitive strategy at Microsoft I worked a lot with Robert Greene, who sent me an early copy of a chapter from his "33 strategies of war" about how FDR got his allies into key positions throughout the government in order to transform things organizationally. It was extremely useful, and books like Robert's and Sun Tzu's should be mandatory reading for anybody doing strategy at a large company (or small company that wants to grow large).

But yeah, the analogy breaks down at some point. Yes, there are billions of dollars at stake here ... but in the real world, soldiers put their lives on the line and civilians get caught up as collateral damage.