One Of the most contentious laws in Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power is Law 7: Get Others to Do the Work for You, but Always Take the Credit.
‘Use the wisdom, knowledge and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a god-like aura of efficiency and speed. In the end, your helpers will be forgotten, and you will be remembered. Never do what others can do for you.’
Look, I get it. If you’re running a company, you’re never going to be able to do everything yourself. That’s why companies have employees. Take Apple, for example. Steve Jobs founded it. Thousands of people helped build it up. Do you think he wrote the code for EVERY programme and designed EVERY interface? But when you think of Apple, you probably think of the bespectacled slim guy in the blue sweater giving TED talks. can you think of a single name of anyone else who worked on it? I can’t.
I can’t say I’ve ever worked for Apple. I’ve not even worked in the private sector since 2008. In the public sector, though, in which I’ve worked since 2007, I’ve come across this law in action.
Back in about 2014 I had a manager we’ll call HS. I’d been working in this particular office for a few months before she came in, from the Chief Exec’s office, and she immediately made changes to work processes – changes that weren’t too popular with a lot of people. She stayed there a couple of years, dishing out work to people who weren’t capable of it (myself included), and held lengthy team meetings that usually included extensive updates about what was happening further up the chain of command – most of which didn’t directly impact us. It was a difficult time, in all honesty.
There was a piece of work she asked me to do – I can’t remember what it was exactly, but I spent quite a while on it. Then, in a team meeting, she announced she was going to do a specific task that sounded eerily like the one I’d done. I clarified with her right there and then, and she just claimed, no. It’s not the job I did. She then went into more detail… and it was basically what I’d worked on some weeks ago.
As the years went on, government cuts affected us more and more, and it looked like the building we worked in was going to close. HS jumped ship to another town. Things got a little easier after that, and it wasn’t long before the building was sold off and I was moved over to a different department myself.
Fast forward a couple of years. I’m at a staff engagement event in a big hall, probably for the last time before they sell that building off too. I’m on a table with some young women I’ve never met before, but we’ve all moved around and worked in different offices as time has gone on.
It turns out that, at different times, that this group of women had also worked under HS. I’m the first to admit I did not get on with her.
Neither did they, one girl tells me. They’d done a ton of work for her as a team, and she took all the credit for it.
Moving a few more years on to current day… according to her LinkedIn, HS is now an Assistant Director in the public sector in another borough.
Law 7 is not the nicest of laws to enact, but it clearly works for some. I did see a video online where Robert Greene himself discusses this law (which, predictably, I now cannot find). He doesn’t necessarily advocate its use, but explains that in the working world, there’ll always be someone prepared to take that action to get what they want. He recommends at least being aware of it.
It wasn’t until the tail end of the pandemic that I ended up reading The 48 Laws of Power, in the early summer of ’21. While reading, it occurred to me that HS would have read a lot of management books, and 48 Laws was doubtlessly one of them.
I can’t imagine not crediting someone. I have guest bloggers once in a while and I’ll always give them their dues. Maybe I’m not ruthless enough.
Or maybe I’m just not a manager.
