Surviving in the "Distraction" Economy: Being Mindfulness

(updated 04/29/15)

In the information economy, it is quite difficult for most people to stay focused. Avoiding the distractions is always the daily challenge. 

What strategic approach does one utilizes when walking around a fast-paced city? 

The Compass Solution
We personally preferred the practice of centering as the grand solution.

While centering yourself to the current position, be relaxed and grounded. Stay calm while feeling whole. Focused on the present.  Secure your space. Allow the noise and the 10,000 things pass by. 

Being mindfully focused enables you to be responsible to your objectives and yourself from your fixed point – your grounded position – from which all other points are connected to.

To be completely agile and mobile, carrying light is a key tactical factor. Try to keep both hands free.

 

Celebrating the World's Intellectual Property Day

For those who are innovative enough to create "state of the art" intellectual property (IP), today is World Intellectual Property day.  This is your day.

Creating IP means being strategically creative.  ...  Recently, World Creativity Week was celebrated.  ...  Now it is time to protect your intellectual property.


One can only thrive in this global economy by incrementally enhancing their "competitive advantage"

The two most relevant points that some people have missed are:

• Identifying what is the advantage
• Determining the protection of the advantage.

Jiang Tai Gong book "Six Secret Teachings" emphasizes "the importance of protecting one's advantage" regardless of the situation.

King Wen asked Tai Gong:"How does one preserve the state's territory?"

Tai Gong said: "Do not estrange your relatives. Do not neglect the masses. Be concillatory and solicitous towards nearby states and control all that is under you. Do not loan the authority of state to other men. If you loan the authority of state to other men, then you will lose your authority. Do not hurt those of lower position to benefit those of higher position. Do not abandon the fundamental to save those that are inconsequential.

When the sun is at midday, you should dry things. If you grasp a knife, you must cut. If you hold an axe, you must attack."

"If at the height of the day, you do not dry things in the sun, this is termed losing the opportunity.

If you grasp a knife but do not cut anything, you will lose the moment for profits. If you hold an axe and do not attack, enemies will attack instead."

"If trickling streams are not blocked, they will become great rivers. If you do not extinguish the smallest flames, there is nothing much you can do when it turns into great flames.

If you do not eliminate the two-leaf sapling, you might have to use the axe to remove it in future." "For this reason, the ruler must focus on developing wealth within his state. Without material wealth, he has nothing with which to spread beneficence or to bring his relatives together.

If he estranges his relatives it will be harmful. If he loses the common people, he will be defeated. "

"Do not loan sharp weapons to other men. If you loan sharp weapons to other men, you will be hurt by them and will not live out your allotted span of years." 

King Wen said:"What do you mean by benevolence and righteousness?"

Tai Gong replied: "Respect the common people, unite your relatives. If you respect the common people, they will be in harmony. And if you unite your relatives, they will be happy. This is the way to implement the essential cords of benevolence and righteousness."

"Do not allow other men to snatch away your awesomeness. Rely on your wisdom, follow the norm. Those that submit and accord with you, treat them generously and virtuously. Those that oppose you, break with force. If you respect the people and trust, the state will be peaceful and populace submissive." - T’ai Kung Liu-t’ao (Six Secret Teachings)

More on this topic can be found in the Seven Military Classics of Ancient China.

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Click here on a historical situation where the possible leaking of a trade secret can determine the fortune of a famous food company and click here on the legal specifics behind the outcome.

Strategists! Celebrate The World Creativity Day. (It Is Now World Creativity and Innovation Week)

(updated: 04.19.15)

There is no more World Creativity day.  . . .  It is now World Creativity and Innovation week.

There are various different ways  to create and innovate.  It is quite depended on the way the innovators think.   . . .  Changing their experience to perceive the information is  always a challenge especially when they think that their perception is correct.

In complex situations, we preferred the practice of viewing "The Singularity of Big Picture" by comprehending the "periphery of the connectivity" that lies within it.

Q: Does that point makes sense to you?

In some instances, creativity could be inspired by positive and negative events.

The real challenge is to create a sound and solid idea  under the stress of time and resources.


Side Note 
It is always fun to create and innovate an new idea. If it does not connect to a current or future need.  The "pseudo" innovative strategist is wasting the employer's time, resources and efforts.

Identifying the marketplace needs should always be the first step.  Determining whether one has the leadership,  the tactics, the resources, the technology and the strategy to innovate an well-thought out product that meets the marketplace is the real challenge.

Too many companies have wasted an abundance  of resources, creating stuff that does not meet the marketplace.  The presumption is that there is a minimum of 9000+ of failures for every one macro success.  ( I am surmising that the number of failures is higher.)

Without ever knowing the range of current and future needs and wants of the marketplace, they operate on the  notion that "we will build it and they will come."    Unless your company is positioned in the top 1% of the marketplace, the risk of succeeding is quite low.


The Compass Process of Seeing the Big Tangible Picture In a Problem
The following set of five steps  is based on the presumption that the problem is complex and difficult to solve.

1. Defining what is the problem
2. Identifying the general factors that operates within the the system that connects to the problem;
3. Determining the particular strategic state of the system;
4. Understanding the configuration within each factor;
5. Determining the capability within the "connective" configuration of the factors
6. Experimenting with the periphery of each component with the option of performing a succession of calculations.

More to come

Play Ball! (The Irrelevancy of Moneyball)

(updated 04.09.15)

Go [ Pick a Team Name ].  Play Ball!

True strategists have never been a fan of this unique "talent evaluation" approach.   It is an integration of hype and minor substance.   Ask Tony LaRussa.

Click here, here, here and here for Tony La Russa's view of Moneyball.

                                 

Quick Synopsis

The Oakland A's and many professional baseball teams have been using a talent evaluation process called Sabermetrics for numerous years. 

The A's management somehow discovered a few unique indicators within the process that most of its implementers did not noticed. They became successful with their Moneyball process, that a book was written about it. Then. many other baseball teams began to copy their process.

It was good publicity for the A's. However, no good deed goes unpunished.

Since the inception of the Moneyball book, the Oakland A's still has not won the World Series . However the Boston Red Sox team who possessed a larger strategic foundation (i.e, intelligence gathering resources, economics, logistics, etc.), used the Moneyball process as a part of their strategic foundation to win three World Series since 2004.

During the successful years of the A's, an associate and I had a discussion with a local sport media insider on the Moneyball phenomenon He told us that the A's management should have kept the technicalities behind the process a secret. It was a major blunder to allow Michael Lewis to get an inside look on the team's decision-making process. Even Michael Lewis agreed that his book caused the A's to lose a few opportunities.

Since 2012, the A's have regained some of their magic and began to make a push to contend for the playoffs.  They still have not been able to prevail over their first opponent.  


Assessing Competition From a Macro View
In the information economy, successful innovation is regularly imitated. ... 

The larger and well-resourced competition would usually adapt any successful process or tool quite well. In most cases, they can afford to err. The smaller competitors regularly operated on the margin of near-zero error. The outcome is obvious if they blundered. In most cases, they regularly focused on low-risk, low reward ventures.

Thoughts on the Moneyball Movie
Years ago, I saw the Moneyball movie and thought that it was ok. It was a nice narrative of a fairy tale.  

I knew people who were A's fans who loved the movie. After they saw the movie, I usually asked them about the projected timeline for the A's winning another World Series.  ... After a few moments of contemplation, they began to have anxiety attacks . 

Some of them were just bandwagon jumpers until the A's went through a dry spell of losing seasons. Then, they left their team and pretended to be Giants fans. Most of them do not even live in Oakland. 

These bandwagon jumpers do not know anything historical about the game, and the team but the score and the names of a few players.   It is so pathetic.

Click here on why one might question the loyalty of A's fans.

Ruminations from the Compass Desk

Following is a series of lessons that one can learn from the Oakland A's campaign from the days of Moneyball until now:

Lesson #1

Never provide your competition the opportunity to utilize your trade secrets against you.

Lesson #2

In the information economy, every relevant competitor has a similar tool set. Obtaining the exotic skill and the strategic experience to master the toolset is always the first challenge. Once one is successful, concealing their variation of the general toolkit becomes the other challenge.

Lesson #3

It is nice to cheer for the underdog. However, the majority of the masses only remember the grand winner, not the losers.

Note: So, do you remember the losers for the last five World Series? 

Lesson #4

The complete knowledge of one's grand terrain and the resourcefulness of each contending competitor have usually enabled the "persevering" strategist to succeed on the long run. (Read the last quote from Chapter 10 of the Art of War. You might understand why. )

Lesson #5a

No specific process is perfect. It evolves due to situational changes

Lesson #5b

The precise execution of the process is a prevailing factor. 

Lesson #5c

Regardless of the process or the strategy, the attribute of talent and the accessibility of resources have usually prevail in extreme situations.  A good strategy never hurts

Lesson #5d

In a predictable (and an even parity-based) situation, the strategic experience of the chief decision maker becomes relevant.

Lesson #6

The knowledge of identifying the pretenders, the underdogs and the contenders is quite important in all strategic situations.

Lesson #7

When the scarcity of resources becomes tangible, the competitive strategists have usually spend more time in the act of assessing the specifics.  Then, they compared their own assessment of themselves to the assessment of their competition.

Lesson #8

Connecting the specifics to the grand overview usually means that one has a understanding of the Big Tangible Picture (BTP).

Lesson #9a

One's own comprehension of the configuration behind the Big Tangible Picture (BTP) is usually proportional to the implementation of their strategic advantage (aka. strategic power)

Lesson #9b

No strategic advantage (or strategic power) lasts forever.

Protecting the Advantage
In reference to lesson one, the first chapter of Jiang Tai Gong's Six Secret Teachings (The Civil Teaching) provides a sound and solid perspective on how to protect one's advantage.

Read, review and reflect.

King Wen asked Tai Gong:"How does one preserve the state's territory?"

Tai Gong said: "Do not estrange your relatives. Do not neglect the masses. Be concillatory and solicitous towards nearby states and control all that is under you. Do not loan the authority of state to other men. If you loan the authority of state to other men, then you will lose your authority. Do not hurt those of lower position to benefit those of higher position. Do not abandon the fundamental to save those that are inconsequential.

When the sun is at midday, you should dry things. If you grasp a knife, you must cut. If you hold an axe, you must attack."

"If at the height of the day, you do not dry things in the sun, this is termed losing the opportunity.

If you grasp a knife but do not cut anything, you will lose the moment for profits. If you hold an axe and do not attack, enemies will attack instead."

"If trickling streams are not blocked, they will become great rivers. If you do not extinguish the smallest flames, there is nothing much you can do when it turns into great flames.

If you do not eliminate the two-leaf sapling, you might have to use the axe to remove it in future." "For this reason, the ruler must focus on developing wealth within his state. Without material wealth, he has nothing with which to spread beneficence or to bring his relatives together.

If he estranges his relatives it will be harmful. If he loses the common people, he will be defeated. "

"Do not loan sharp weapons to other men. If you loan sharp weapons to other men, you will be hurt by them and will not live out your allotted span of years."

King Wen said:"What do you mean by benevolence and righteousness?"

Tai Gong replied: "Respect the common people, unite your relatives. If you respect the common people, they will be in harmony. And if you unite your relatives, they will be happy. This is the way to implement the essential cords of benevolence and righteousness."

"Do not allow other men to snatch away your awesomeness. Rely on your wisdom, follow the norm. Those that submit and accord with you, treat them generously and virtuously. Those that oppose you, break with force. If you respect the people and trust, the state will be peaceful and populace submissive." 
- T’ai Kung Liu-t’ao (Six Secret Teachings)

More on this topic can be found in the Seven Military Classics of Ancient China.

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April First: The "Perfect" Day To Honor the Cult of the Art of War

Source: The Atlantic
( updated on 04.09.15, 12:00 noon )

The number of ways that the amateurs have conceptualize the essence of Sunzi's essay on strategic competition- (Sunzi's Art of War) into rules and simplifications, have somewhat "confounded" us (for a brief moment) in terms of their naivety.

These amateurs really believed that the utilization of heuristic rules, simple graphs and Venn diagrams could solve the complexity of life.

Some of these result-oriented winners usually look at life in terms of a black box.  They are rarely ever concerned about the inner workings of the box as long as the grand benefit of the projected result outweighs the drawbacks.  Simultaneously, these people rarely consider the possible "reciprocity" from their actions.

Because of their social-economic standings, they really believed that most of their life is like a "1+1=2"  equation.

In a complex (disinformation-driven) society like ours, is the number "1" really a number "1" ?


Hagy's Book
Click here  on how Jessica Hagy simplifies the message of Sunzi.

Visually and conceptually, her book is superb for the "simple solution-driven"novices and the pseudo cult leaders who loathed deep thinking and long memories.

It is perfect for the pop culture-driven society who are always demanding simplicity in their empty lives.

In summary, some of us have seen the book, and liked it for its visual content.  The context is great but the details are missing.

We recommended this book for the newbies and the novices who preferred a simple perspective for solving problems and who are participating in other minor competitive situations.

The Questions of the Day
Q: Regardless of the simplicity of her view, do you think that you can succeed with that two-dimensional perspective  in a complex, multi-dimensional strategic situation while the clock is ticking?

Q: If there is an err in your decision, are you able to absorb the after-effect? . . . Or will your associate asked their own pawns to target their "finger of blame" at someone else for the obvious reason?

Q: Do you think that the knowledge of knowing the different philosophic approaches to solving strategic problems (from the Art of War), will help you in a competitive situation that encompasses the essence of complexity?

Q: Do you know how to pinpoint the correct set of tactical means that connects the wide array of operational modes to that suggested approach?

Q: Instead of spending your time assessing the Big Tangible Picture (identifying the catalyst level within the abyss of complexity and conclude the advantageous exception in a cyber minute), are you going to search for that unique set of favorite quotes that would inspire you to greater heights?

Q: When the "feel good" magic of the book disappears and the reality of your life creeps back into the attic of your mind, how are you going to decide your next move?

Q: Are you going to contact your guru and ask for "a clear shine" of a solution?

Thoughts From The Compass Desk
In summary, do you think that there is more to the concept of "tangible strategy" than the current "simple" broadcast of Sunzi's Art of War principles?

To the Cult of the Art of War, enjoy your day.  ...

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It is time for us to return to some serious fishing.