Preparing for a Worst Case Scenario (from the Field Level)

(Emerson Knives)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Someone recently asked us for strategic and tactical advice for extreme situations where the attackers are carrying knives.   .  

Regardless of the geographical region, bladed attacks happen all over the world (i.e., China, Canada, England, the U.S. etc.) The skill of the attacker might vary but the use of a blade is a common trend.  There was one unique case in London  where the victim was hacked to death.

Source: Yahoo

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/soccer-dirty-tackle/assortment-crude-weapons-confiscated-outside-coppa-italia-final-175747609.html

In some extreme combative scenario,  your attackers could be utilizing long, heavy and sharp apparatus or finger-sized stilettos?

Against normal street fighters, neophyte martial art training could only go so far.  Will your emulation of a MMA fighter or a highlander-sword slinger present you a temporary edge? We doubted that this insane approach would work against a seasoned street fighter.

Compass Solution

When maneuvering through chaotic and hostile terrain, carrying an Amazon Kindle, an iPAD, or any type of consumer electronic device, is not going to properly protect you from getting your head bashed by a gang of high school punks who are high on drugs.   Your copy of the Art of War will not resolve the spiritual conflict of the attackers.  

Prepare yourself for worst case scenarios by carrying the bare minimum. Focus on being light, agile and mobile. Do not be a mule.  ... 

Other Defensive Means

A customized clipboard might make a good defensive object to utilize. It is light and durable. 

You can either purchase this item through the web or build it. It is quite simple. Our research tells us that a 10 by 15 inch clipboard with a quarter inch thick-ness, made from clear polycarbonate plastic, costs somewhere between the $20-$35 range. It fits into any briefcase or any reasonably-sized backpack and the weight is minimum.

We believed that it is possible to carry this implement as a defensive shield against some of the various lower caliber projectiles. Whether a person is willing to carry this clipboard, every hour of the day, is a different story

In a head to head situation where milli-seconds are quite previous, utilizing the clipboard might be a good tactical solution.   

Confrontational Tactic 

In a confrontational situation, keep them in front of you.  Do not get caught on an encircling situation.  It is essential to have the availability of one escape route available.  When in doubt, run first.   

Reminder: Do not let them encircle you.

We recommended that one should be methodical in their assessment of the current situation, and accurate (not impulsively quick, inaccurate and dead), before entering into a hazardous terrain.

The Advanced Advice for The Experienced Strategist 

"The Will to Prepare" is always greater than "The Will to Act on Instinct."  Be prepared by staying two steps ahead of the situation.

Those who enjoy the thrill of a direct confrontation and need additional tactical guidance.  We recommended the reading of the Water Book and the Fire book of Musashi's Book of Five Rings. It will enlighten you in the array of tactics for adjusting in different tactical confrontational situations

Situational Challenge

Can one "quick draw" the other guy before he could utilize his implement?  

Click and Observe.

Source: Youtube

Regardless of the thrill of the battle, one must understand the importance of honor and the respect of life.

Is the Solution Pragmatic and Practical?
Playing defense is always a pragmatic solution.  The extremity of the change factor and the initial assessment determines whether it is possible to proceed with the original solution.

Basic Suggestions From the Compass Network

We have asked our various friends in the martial art community for tactical advice. Some people suggested to arm heavily and learn how to utilize it. One person recommended the tactical practice of the advancing half step, right hand strike. Another person preferred the Baguazhang practice of the three palms (The Single Change Palm, The Double Change Palm and The Following Posture Palm) as the solution.  ... Me!?  ... I preferred to retreat, run and re-position while practicing the skill of ting jing and dong jing.

Side note

• You can read an assortment of martial arts topics at Cook Ding's Kitchen.

Another Example of Failure to Plan is to Plan for Failure

source: wikimedia

So, what happens to the companies when their Chief Decision Makers (CDM) do not spend any relevant time planning ahead?   ...  Errors occurs.  Profits are lowered.  Costs are raised.   Risk are not mitigated and opportunities are missed.

By mis-assessing their situation, their planning is usually based on their conceptualization of what their position is about.  

Poor assessment occasionally means an average or a sub par strategic position.  Average position usually creates inadequate influence.

Click here for an good example on poor decision management by a chief decision maker.

Analysis
One could only ponder that whether  this type of Chief Decision Makers have ever spend any serious time  researching the specifics for building a proper Big Tangible Picture (BTP). If a plan is ever developed, they should know when to stay on course and when to adjust from it.  ...  In most cases, these Chief Decision Makers  (of the upper level) are focused on the "now."   They rarely suffer any risk consequences for their massive "SNAFU" decisions. 

Historically, these "CDMs" usually kick the can forward and let their successor worry about it.  ... Life moves on for them. ... 

The Compass Solution
It can be discouraged for those who are competing in our pseudo transparent world of complexity and elongated connectivity.  However, there is a pattern to everything.

By understanding that specific pattern, one is able to assess their situation in terms of one's own tenability, the various constraints, the possible simplicity of the situation , the probable range of the situation and one's own current position within the situation.   Most people considered this specific practice to be too long and troublesome.   If one wants to compete effectively, drop us a message.  We might be able to help you.

In the future, we will post a few items on how to assess a situation through the utilization of the Five Critical Strategic Factors. 

Conclusion
Regardless of the amount of "big data" technology and the quantity of people that has graduated from the elite schools,  the experience of assessing, planning and implementing generally prevail in critical times.

More on "Failure to Plan is To Plan for Failure" (2)

Today is the 26th of May.  Do you have a plan for your current venture?  ...  Are you going to wing it?  ... Or are you the man (or woman) with the plan?

Have you assessed your strategic situation?  If so, I presumed that you are one of those rare few who does the following:

• connect the dots between the matrix of connectivity, the seasonal cycle and the grand setting
• connect the dots between the logistics, the leadership and the grand setting.
• identifying the competitive disposition within the configuration of your setting;
• pinpointing the opportunity and the timing point of your setting;  and 
• conclude the reality within the possible adjustment.

Schema

• Brew a cup of tea or java.
• Script out the various tasks/objectives.
• Delineate the list of objectives in terms of the following specifics: the targeted date; the metrics; the benefits; the risk consequences; the connections; the time that it takes to complete that  task-objective; and the budget that it takes to complete that objective.
• Prioritize your list of objectives by using the 90/10 rule.   Another words, focus 90% of your effort on the top 10% of your objective .  Some people preferred the 80/20 rule or the 70-20-10 rule to be their guide.
• Delineate the approach and the means
• Review by connecting the dots between the objectives, the operational plans, the competition and the trends.
• Script out the tactical steps for those top 10% objectives.
• Outline the specifics of the details.
• Implement the script.

While mapping out the plan, focus on the task of the moment.  ...  Go ahead and do it.  The process of building the plan is not that hard.  ... It starts with your effect. ...  The answer is not in your copy of the Art of War or the Dao De Jing or the Bible.  No one is going to be your cheerleader.  ...  Look at the mirror.

Remember, heaven helps those who help themselves.  

Questions

• If you have done it, assess whether your plan would enable you to be one step ahead of the situation or one step behind?
• Do you have the patience and the control to assess the operability of your plan?
• If not, do you have an outside adviser who will assess the tangibility of your plan?

Comments
Now that you have a master plan, what is the possibility that you will complete it on one smooth move?   

What makes you think that your plan is built for adjusted situations?

There are people who believed in that concept that a bad plan is better than having no plan.   If that is true, how do you know if or when your plan is inoperable?

In summary, there is more to planning than the building of a plan.

In a future post, we will explain why you need to assess your situation before you plan, prepare and implement. 

The Dao of Strategy: Gathering Intelligence

Before a plan can be developed and implemented , one must assess the tangibility of their situation. Proper assessment requires proper collection of data. Unless one is a psychic, he or she cannot have one without the other.

Knowing  how to properly gather intelligence is one thing.  Having the intent to implement the process is the real challenge.

Failure to Plan is to Plan for Failure 
A few people from the Taiwan's baseball team recently failed in their attempt to gain an informational advantage and got caught.  Even the idol of the Art of the War Cult got caught in 2007.   ... They should have reading this book , this book, and this book for some ideas.

In the 1960's the Oakland Raiders organization has been known to do unique activities to gain the upper hand.

Side note: After the "Spygate"incident, Coach Belichick was able to achieve a perfect 16-0 season.  He is going to Hall of Fame regardless of this minor oversight. His dad wrote a super book on scouting. If you are a football enthusiast, we highly recommend this book. ) 

The Challenge of the Process
Pinpointing the objective and deciding on the right approach is the semi-difficult job.  Choosing the means and executing it properly is another story.  Our research tells us that most people are quite bad in building and implementing contingency plans.  In most cases, they will have problems when worst case scenarios become real.

The Other Alternative
The stealth choice of some strategic players is the satellite.  However, that option has its limitations.  We presumed that you know why.  

Click here and here for more interesting information on how high-tech intelligence gathering is being used.  

Side note: While high-tech intelligence gathering is used for narrowing the scope of a target, human intelligence gathering is still viable.  It is usually utilized for an unique target especially when "big data" becomes irrelevant.  ... Choosing the right target promptly can be problematic in a non-transparent situation.

Reflections from the Compass Desk
It is up to the reader to decide whether gathering intelligence is unethical? Our role is to delineate the fundamentals of strategy, not to judge people's decisions.

# updated 02.26.13

Proper Planning (and Preparation) Prevents Pissed, Poor Performance #2

#
Some of our readers loved their quotes. They live their way of life through their quotes.  Sometimes, their flock follows them. 

To appease this section of our readers, here is an abridged list of quotes that the Compass team has collected:

• "Preparation Precedes Performance"
• "Proper Planning  and Preparation Prevents Pissed, Poor Performance"
• "The Will To Prepare" is more important than "The Will to Win".
• "Know when and how to prepare for planning is the first stage of preparation. ... Knowing what and how to plan is the next stage. ..."
• "Preparation Pays Profits when Preparation meets Opportunity...."
• "Preparation + Opportunity = Success. ..."

# # #

• "The plan is nothing; . . . the planning is everything." - Dwight Eishenhower, the Grand Thinker of the "1944 D-day invasion of Normandy, France
• "Failure to Prepare is to Prepare to Failure." - Bill Walsh, the Architect of the West Coast Offense. Former Coach of San Francisco Forty Niners (Super Bowl Champions 1981-82, 1984-85, and 1988-89).
• " ... Organization leads to preparation. . . . Preparation eliminates the unexpected. Be ready for everything. . . . Overlook nothing. ... " - Brian Billick, Former Head Coach of Baltimore Ravens (Super Bowl Champions 2000-2001) .
• "If you have a plan, and if you have your direction laid out, you can chart your progress to your dreams at each stop along the way. ... And just as important, all along the way you can see how far you've come." - Michael Shanahan, Current Head Coach of the Washington Redskins, (Former coach of Denver Broncos, Super Bowl Champions 1997-1998, 1998-1999) 
• Organizing, leading, enduring setbacks and ultimately succeeding lies at the heart of every profession, be it business, the military or football. -Walsh ( Forbes | December 7, 1992 |)

Interestingly, the preachers and teachers from the Cult of the Art of War also employed this approach.  If you asked them how do they integrate the principles into one solid entity. they have no answers.  They just don't know.  Principles and quotes could only go so far. 

If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, 

you don't know what you're doing.  - W. Edward Deming

Philosophy does not win battles. Understanding the psychology, the mathemathics and the physics of the situation are the key factors behind the building of a plan. The next step is the processing of the intelligence into a process model. 

So, do you have a process model that allows you to see the tangible specifics?  ...  Do you?

Side note 
You can find interesting and unique views on planning and preparation in the Seven Strategic Classics and Sun Bin's classic.

The Art of War's Chapter 13: Gathering Intelligence

Intelligence gathering is always in motion. One can see it from one professional sport to another.   It also happens in politics and business.

This is how the game is being played in a competitive economy.  

Is it ethical?  This depends on how one practices the art and the science of gathering intelligence. 

Exploiting the intelligence in a productive mode is another story.

Gathering Intelligence in the Information Economy
On the web, elite class business rivals usually visited each other and see nothing.  The context is generalized. The numbers could be deceptively published. How do they get the strategic advantage?

Start from ground zero and begin your journey by reading Chapter 1 and Chapter 13 of the Art of War. Connect the content between those two chapters and the other chapters through the use of the various strategic factors and you might reap the rewards.  You might also understand the framework of our process model.  Some parts of it could be found here.

The Fallacy of The "Planning to Win" Approach
The planning stage of any strategy is worthless if the researched information has minimal value. One can only adjust so far especially when the timeline factor and the resources factor become prevalent.

Eighteen months ago, we met amateurs who claimed that they can plan their way to a victory. Their concept of scheming and planning was near-perfect. They believed that their plans will prevail repeatedly. 

It helped that these  "wonder kids"had the advantage of a rich uncle.  They  sometime practiced the  micro approach of "one shot one win" or  the approach of "adjusting to the situation until it is right."  Both approaches become worthless if the tactician does not comprehend the rate of change and the possible adjustment strategies of the opposing  tactician.  

In rare situations, they were defeated by another competitor, with less resources. Their usual reasoning was that it was an incident of bad mojo or poor mindful awareness.  

Grinding, grounding and pounding was their usual style.  They definitely did not practice the Li Quan view of contesting.

Sooner or later, these amateurs will meet a strong competitor who has greater resources and smart strategic thinkers.  Then they will realize that their "kitchen sink" approaches do not always work.  There is a small possibility that their stronger competitor will not be gracious.

Thoughts From The Compass Desk

The Art of War essay or any of the popular strategy classics do not really explain how to operate in this situation.   So, what is the  answer?  

Do you think that the so-called strategy experts possessed the answer?

Send us a message and we might tell you.

Proper Planning Prevents Pissed Poor Performance

Compass Rule 
90% of the planning process is seeing the essence of one's goal and one's plan. The other 10% is having the fortitude to implement it properly.

Click here for an example of a "failure to plan is to plan to failure" situation.  

In conclusion, stupid people will do stupid things.

Preparation Precedes Performance (3)

If the infrastructure of our information society gets a glitch or if a worst case scenario occurs, what tools (not toys) reside in your "everyday carry" bag? Does each and every item serves a minimum of two purposes?

The answer is not in your copy of the Art of War or your playbook of algorithms.

Compass Rules

• Assess, Position and Influence
• Always focus on necessities not accessories.
• Proper Prior Planning (and Preparation) Prevents Poor Performance. (The 7 P's)

The Reality of Playing the Strategy Game

An associate (Mr. Dragon) who is a fan of the iptv technology, sent us this article that gave an interesting fact- 88% of all IPTV marketers don't have an strategy.

After a moment of message swapping, we all concluded that operating without a strategy is a habit of many people. Some of these people are in love with the notion of doing stuff from the seat of their pants. They loved to be inspired and having the feeling of grinding, grounding and pounding their way through the numerous obstacles. Finding the path of least resistance is not in their agenda. {There is a grand exception to this idealistic setting. Do you know what it is? ...}

In some cases, they over-exceed the expected timeline and the budget. Do you think that is the best way to succeed in one's goal?

A few years ago, we performed an inpromptu survey on how many organizations were operating without a real tangible strategic plan. Without getting into the deep specifics, the count was over 50%.

In most cases, some of these companies were operating on a quarterly basis. The life cycle of their projects usually averaged about three months. Most of their chief decision makers never took the time to think past the three to six months timeline. Their quarterly strategic plans resembled to the particulars of a "Things to Do" list.

Due to the current political-economic uncertainty, this tradition of "playing the quarterly game without a long term strategy" will still continue.

Our immediate solution for this type of short term strategic activity is the Compass script.

Failure to Plan is to Plan to Failure

Those who possessed the strong "political, economic and social" influences, are usually able to endure the err of not building a good long term strategy. It is one of the few exceptions to the "Failure to Plan is to Plan to Failure" rule.

Side Notes

In our strategy book project, we have modernized our listing of strategic and tactical principles. It is based on the Art of War (AoW) and the other components from the Seven Military Classics of Ancient China (Seven Strategy Classics). We are still debating on including a list of exceptions where certain tactical principles should not be in play regarding to specific situations.

Ask your local Sunzi reader/expert if he or she knows the exceptions to certain principles from the Art of War and other Chinese strategy classics.

Our current set of priorities does not include the publishing of this book for the next three to six months. We are currently too involved with our macro objectives.