Machiavelli and the marketplace: Medicean maxims for women at work. From the interview:

People aiming for higher pay or a promotion may find winning career advice in a 500-year-old treatise that is often assigned reading for college freshmen.

That’s the argument of a new book by Stacey Vanek Smith, whose “Machiavelli for Women: Defend Your Worth, Grow Your Ambition, and Win the Workplace” instructs readers on how to gain and hold power in a newly conquered land, or in this case, the modern office. Seeking new ideas for closing racial and gender pay gaps at work, Ms. Smith revisited “The Prince” and says she found Niccolò Machiavelli’s advice—to observe what works and then do it—was freeing….

Q. People tend to associate Machiavelli with ruthlessness. You reject that dimension of his philosophy.

A. Machiavelli is definitely associated with evil, but as I was reading “The Prince,” the thing that struck me was that it wasn’t malicious. Ruthless, maybe. He just analyzed everything. “This is not a great reality. But if you’re in it, what do you do?”…

There’s a lot of research that shows that if you introduce new elements into a negotiation instead of having it be a face-off about one thing, it’s much more likely to be successful. “I want $75,000, but I want this title. I’d really love to work on this project. I’d really love the month of August off. I’d really love to work from home on Fridays.” It pulls negotiation out of the emotional zone and into a much more analytical, conversational, more Machiavellian place.

Q. The book focuses on women, but can men use this advice?

A. The workplace is not easy for anyone. Even if you are the most privileged person, it’s still competitive. A lot of men I have talked to have enormous amounts of anxiety around negotiating. It’s applicable to anybody who struggles with asking for more for themselves.

Q. What job would Machiavelli have today?

A. He was essentially the secretary of state for Florence, but corporations have more power now than the government, I think. He would be a head of strategy for Google, because of all the personal information. He’d work with big data. You know—walk softly, carry big data.