5 Great Business Principles From ‘The Art of War’
The Art of War has been required reading for thousands and thousand of students and leaders in all sorts of sectors for the last 2500 years. Perhaps most important is that this book is the first known study of planning and conduct of military operations. Today, it still serves as a de facto strategic and tactical guidebook for managers, and even infamously with some in the entertainment industry.
I chose a few snippets from the book and applied them to modern business comparisons.
All armies prefer high ground to low and sunny places to dark.
The metaphorical synergy here is obvious, but perhaps not to all. People continually try to reinvent the wheel, and often refuse to let go. It's your choice on what you are to tackle, but market research, intelligence and analysis should be first and foremost. On the flip side, competition is a good thing.
All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
Everyone is trying to create a form of reselling success. Good luck.
It's hard work, luck and having oneself ready for opportunity. You in ways, will and should develop tactics that are discovered from personal successes and failures. Gerald Loeb has a famous quote, of which I use quite often, and it went along the line of: Listen to everyone, follow no one.
When the enemy is close at hand and remains quiet, he is relying on the natural strength of his position.
This covers high frequency traders and even server positions close to Twitter’s data center, etc. Is it that business hubs are created to feed off each other? Of course, but enemies back then were not the same as enemies now, in some respect. A business wishing to grab market share from an opponent should be as close to that opponent as they can, either though intelligence, surveillance, or being physically close to them.
Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.
Research and think, hard.
He who can modify his tactics in relations to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.
I would suggest applying this to your tactics, and center in on success because if you take anything from this passage, for all we know all champions may be going to Valhalla. This is all about pivoting.
There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must be not attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed.
I had to end with this. Sounds like anarcho-capitalism.
