Deception, prudence and the art of winning
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is considered the most influential book on strategy and tactics ever written. Sun Tzu was a Chinese military strategist who lived somewhere between the years 770 to 250 BC.
Scholars believe Sun Tzu was a general working for the Wu state. It is clear that whatever his life experiences were, he had a great deal of knowledge about warfare and tactical training. It has been studied by not only military leaders but also by politicians and business executives for centuries. For business especially, his profound pronouncements have remained relevant because of their focus on strategy and tactics, not warfare.
Let me first define strategy and tactics. Strategy is a plan of action that gives you a long term and sustainable competitive advantage. Tactics also comprise a plan of action to give you a competitive advantage but over a shorter term. So, it’s the duration that determines the difference between strategy and tactics.
No wonder that the world of business has had a long fascination for Sun Tzu’s book. In essence, the book is a series of quotations on how to face your competition. I am going to talk about some of the most striking observations Sun Tzu makes.
All warfare is based on deception. The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
On the face of it, to say that warfare is based on deception appears to be unethical. In reality, what the author is saying is that we need to do is to take our opponent or competitors by surprise. We need to deceive them.
For example, when you are cracking a joke you need to deceive the person to think that you are serious until the point where you give away that it’s a joke. Not doing so means you’re taking the thunder out of the whole thing.
Let’s consider that in the context of a performance appraisal situation. Rather than tell your boss you are going to do a bunch of things, it may be more effective to do it in a strategic, stealthy manner. That element of surprise brings with it more recognition.
Business is about setting and managing expectations. A person who is doing his or her job well will constantly set lower expectations and deliver more. And if you think about it, it’s deception—you are deceiving others by delivering more than what you are expected to do.
He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.
Meaning you need to take the enemy by surprise. This applies perfectly in sales. For instance, when our competitor is not aware, we are prudent. We do market intelligence, we do the customer behaviour analysis, we also do account mapping. We are prudent and then we lie in wait with our competitor who’s not prepared, therefore, we will be able to win that account or project.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of hundred battles.
You need to know your product, your services, your market and customer, but at the same time you need to know your opponent too. Once you do this you will be in a position to really not just win that battle but can actually get the result in a hundred battles. This is about the importance of planning, preparation, and also how we should not only study ourselves but also our enemy.
In war, the way to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.
It means there is no point in attacking your competitor in areas where he or she is strong; what we need to find out is what are their areas where they are weak. Chances are my competitor is not prudent, and not customer focused. So find out the cracks in the system and then go after them.
Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
That’s another gem from Sun Tzu. It focuses on the importance of tactics in warfare. When you innovate something and tell the world about the concept and idea, chances are the innovative idea can be stolen. You need to protect it, do it stealthily. Nobody should know what you are doing. This what highly successful companies like Apple and Microsoft do—until they get the idea patented they don’t tell the world about it.
The commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage, and strictness.
The art of war is governed by five constant factors. If you are strong within, you will be able to conquer your enemy within. If you are bold, courageous and disciplined, there is nothing in outside that will kill you. And we also have this in management, people are hired for their technical skills, but they are fired for their behavioural skills. They are fired because they lack sincerity and wisdom.
Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe who he is facing.
We can learn a lot about leadership from a water stream. A water stream has got a definite direction. At some places it is shallow, other places deep. In some places the water goes fast and at certain places slow. That’s exactly how a strategist must work in relation to the foe. If you find the foe is strong in one area, you need to evade confrontation in that area. If you find he or she is temperamental, see how you can use that factor for your benefit. Business is about agility and how adaptable you are in a given situation.
Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
In business we have to find ways to win without engaging in direct competition. In life, too, one can achieve great results by finding ways to influence others without being confrontational.
About Anand Pillai
Anand Pillai is the Managing Director of Leadership Matters, a company focused on building an entrepreneurial culture in organisations. Prior to this he was a Chief Learning Officer at Reliance Industries. With more than 35 years of rich experience in the corporate world, he has handled challenging assignments in general management and as head of operations in Fortune 500 companies. He is a certified coach and behavioural analyst.
