Monday, June 30, 2014

Succeeding in a Complex World by Understanding the Connectivity Behind it


"While the amateurs concentrate on their side of the game board, the professionals are focused on building the connectivity of the entire board." - Anonymous

"Go is essentially a form of harmony. Go in the 21st century will have to be go of the 'harmony of the six points - the four quarters, the above and the below.' As in life we will need to view the whole rather than the part. Japanese go has focused too heavily on the local (joseki) rather than the whole for 300 years. The reason the Chinese and Koreans are overtaking the Japanese is that they are closer to achieving this whole-board view.  

- Go Seigen, 9p, 1994  http://gobase.org/reading/proverbs/

Achieving the whole-board view in the game of Go (Weiqi) is tasking enough. Performing it proficiently in our complex business world is the real challenge. 

Comments From The Compass Desk 
Understanding this unique quality of connectivity in any situation means having the actual skillset to recognize what sets of individual factors that are in play.

“These are the ways that successful strategists are victorious. They cannot be spoken or transmitted in advance. ... Before the confrontation, they resolve in their conference room that they will be victorious, have determined that the majority of factors are in their favor. Before the confrontation they resolve in their conference room that they will not be victorious, have determined a few factors are in their favor.

If those who find that the majority of factors favor them, will be victorious while those who have found few factors favor them will be defeated, what about someone who finds no factors in their favor?

When observing from this viewpoint, victory and defeat will be apparent.”
- Art of War 1 (Paraphrased from the Sawyer's translation

Some of those factors could be found in Sunzi's Art of War. Do you know each of those factors?  ... 

We will discuss the "importance of connectivity" in understanding the current situation and the next situation in a future post.  


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