Fantasizing in the Information Economy with The "Art of War "Cult (1)

The Cult of The Art of War are in love with the concept of preaching and teaching the principles from Sunzi The Art of War (AoW).  ... They reminded me of a Sunday school's bible class where the teachers constantly recite the individual quotes without ever discussing the specifics behind the quotes in terms of a particular situation. 

An inspirational message can only go so far. ... Heaven helps those who are following these idiots. 

Beside not knowing the approach to connecting the right practices to the principles, these pseudo experts do not know how to assess a situation in terms of risk, uncertainty and volatility. 

Q: So, why are they teaching this fluff to their flock? 

A: No one cares about their reasoning. They just wanted to inspire their flock.

Side Notes

We have personally felt that there are numerous bogus experts who have tainted the true message of the Art of War.

Some of these bogus experts believed that the Art of War essay (or The Prince essay) is the absolute answer to outwitting their competitors. They also spent an abundance of time, emphasizing on the message of  "rah-rah" leadership  and self-empowerment while presenting an amateurish view of planning. 

This perspective indirectly means that these people could barely assess the predictability and the complexity of a situation without ever knowing how to assess its disposition, its momentum of change and the reality from the abyss of illusions.


Some of the serious strategy professionals quietly viewed this perspective as a moral hazard.  . . . However, these "thoughtless carbos" have served the immediate wants of the mindless masses. 

Why do some of these pseudo experts claimed that they know the Art of War when they do not comprehend the process of assessing their strategic settings?  After awhile, we stopped wondering about the reasons of that behavior.  ... In the information economy, deception is the norm.  ... The masses love the message of a "simple but irrelevant"  solution in a complex world.   ...  The flock that followed these pseudo experts, deserve the obvious  

Happy April Fools Day!

Filtering the Truthfulness From the Deception

The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China (The Art of War and Jiang Tai Gong)  emphasized the importance of detecting deception.

In our 21st century, the masses rarely do so. Since there is no risk consequence, they make immediate judgment call. Performing due diligence sometimes takes some time, some effort and the willingness to analyze.  Most people are not willing to do that.  

Some of them do not even have the drive to stay focused on a topic for five solid minutes.  ... That is so sad.  


The Lie
During a lecture for the London Review of Books, the Booker Prize-winning novelist launched a scathing criticism of Prince William’s wife, branding her a “jointed doll on which certain rags are hung” with “no personality of her own” and insisting she appears to have been “designed by committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile.”

Source: SFGate.com

The Truth 

Source: LrB

"Last summer at the festival in Hay-on-Wye, I was asked to name a famous person and choose a book to give them. I hate the leaden repetitiveness of these little quizzes: who would be the guests at your ideal dinner party, what book has changed your life, which fictional character do you most resemble? I had to come up with an answer, however, so I chose Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, and I chose to give her a book published in 2006, by the cultural historian Caroline Weber; it’s called Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. It’s not that I think we’re heading for a revolution. It’s rather that I saw Kate becoming a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung. In those days she was a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore. These days she is a mother-to-be, and draped in another set of threadbare attributions. Once she gets over being sick, the press will find that she is radiant. They will find that this young woman’s life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose being to give birth.

Marie Antoinette was a woman eaten alive by her frocks. She was transfixed by appearances, stigmatised by her fashion choices. Politics were made personal in her. Her greed for self-gratification, her half-educated dabbling in public affairs, were adduced as a reason the French were bankrupt and miserable. It was ridiculous, of course. She was one individual with limited power and influence, who focused the rays of misogyny. She was a woman who couldn’t win. If she wore fine fabrics she was said to be extravagant. If she wore simple fabrics, she was accused of plotting to ruin the Lyon silk trade. But in truth she was all body and no soul: no soul, no sense, no sensitivity. She was so wedded to her appearance that when the royal family, in disguise, made its desperate escape from Paris, dashing for the border, she not only had several trunk loads of new clothes sent on in advance, but took her hairdresser along on the trip. Despite the weight of her mountainous hairdos, she didn’t feel her head wobbling on her shoulders. When she returned from that trip, to the prison Paris would become for her, it was said that her hair had turned grey overnight.

Antoinette as a royal consort was a gliding, smiling disaster, much like Diana in another time and another country. But Kate Middleton, as she was, appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile and the spindles of her limbs hand-turned and gloss-varnished. When it was announced that Diana was to join the royal family, the Duke of Edinburgh is said to have given her his approval because she would ‘breed in some height’. Presumably Kate was designed to breed in some manners. She looks like a nicely brought up young lady, with ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ part of her vocabulary. But in her first official portrait by Paul Emsley, unveiled in January, her eyes are dead and she wears the strained smile of a woman who really wants to tell the painter to bugger off. One critic said perceptively that she appeared ‘weary of being looked at’. Another that the portrait might pass muster as the cover of a Catherine Cookson novel: an opinion I find thought-provoking, as Cookson’s simple tales of poor women extricating themselves from adverse circumstances were for twenty years, according to the Public Lending Right statistics, the nation’s favourite reading. Sue Townsend said of Diana that she was ‘a fatal non-reader’. She didn’t know the end of her own story. She enjoyed only the romances of Barbara Cartland. I’m far too snobbish to have read one, but I assume they are stories in which a wedding takes place and they all live happily ever after. Diana didn’t see the possible twists in the narrative. What does Kate read? It’s a question.

Kate seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character. She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture. Diana was capable of transforming herself from galumphing schoolgirl to ice queen, from wraith to Amazon. Kate seems capable of going from perfect bride to perfect mother, with no messy deviation. When her pregnancy became public she had been visiting her old school, and had picked up a hockey stick and run a few paces for the camera. BBC News devoted a discussion to whether a pregnant woman could safely put on a turn of speed while wearing high heels. It is sad to think that intelligent people could devote themselves to this topic with earnest furrowings of the brow, but that’s what discourse about royals comes to: a compulsion to comment, a discourse empty of content, mouthed rather than spoken. And in the same way one is compelled to look at them: to ask what they are made of, and is their substance the same as ours.

I used to think that the interesting issue was whether we should have a monarchy or not. But now I think that question is rather like, should we have pandas or not? Our current royal family doesn’t have the difficulties in breeding that pandas do, but pandas and royal persons alike are expensive to conserve and ill-adapted to any modern environment. But aren’t they interesting? Aren’t they nice to look at? Some people find them endearing; some pity them for their precarious situation; everybody stares at them, and however airy the enclosure they inhabit, it’s still a cage.

... Is monarchy a suitable institution for a grown-up nation? I don’t know. I have described how my own sympathies were activated and my simple ideas altered. The debate is not high on our agenda. We are happy to allow monarchy to be an entertainment, in the same way that we license strip joints and lap-dancing clubs. Adulation can swing to persecution, within hours, within the same press report: this is what happened to Prince Harry recently. You can understand that anybody treated this way can be destabilised, and that Harry doesn’t know which he is, a person or a prince. Diana was spared, at least, the prospect of growing old under the flashbulbs, a crime for which the media would have made her suffer. It may be that the whole phenomenon of monarchy is irrational, but that doesn’t mean that when we look at it we should behave like spectators at Bedlam. Cheerful curiosity can easily become cruelty. It can easily become fatal. We don’t cut off the heads of royal ladies these days, but we do sacrifice them, and we did memorably drive one to destruction a scant generation ago. History makes fools of us, makes puppets of us, often enough. But it doesn’t have to repeat itself. In the current case, much lies within our control. I’m not asking for censorship. I’m not asking for pious humbug and smarmy reverence. I’m asking us to back off and not be brutes. Get your pink frilly frocks out, zhuzh up your platinum locks. We are all Barbara Cartland now. The pen is in our hands. A happy ending is ours to write.

Click here for the entire essay. 

Comments From The Compass Desk

After collecting intelligence, successful strategists assessed their situation.  They measured the validity of their sources before re-assessing the situation. Finding the path of minimum resistance requires them to identify deception.  It is the Dao of the successful strategist.

Three Pragmatic Questions for Our Hardcore Strategic Audience

Anytime, there are associates (or pseudo experts) who tell us at that they really understand the essence behind the Chinese strategies. We would usually asked them a minimum of 36 questions. 

So far, no one have gotten past the 70% mark. The passing grade is 88%. ... 

Following are three of those 36+ questions:

1. What is the grand distinction between Jiang Tai Gong's Six Secret Teachings, Sunzi (Sun Tzu) the Art of War?
2. What are the applicational differences between Jiang Tai Gong's Six Secret Teachings, Sunzi (Sun Tzu) the Art of War?
3. How does one uses the concepts and principles from Jiang Tai Gong's Six Secret Teachings and the Huang Shek Gong's Three Strategies in a strategic assessment scenario?

If you get the right answers for those three questions, we will send you a free copy of Dr. Sawyer's The Essential Art of War. 

More to come.

Compass360 Consulting Recommendation

To understand the configuration of the Big Tangible Picture, we recommended the reading of Jiang Tai Gong  (JTG)and his Six Secret Teachings book.   

In the Chinese strategy game, he is considered to be "The Father of Strategic Studies."  Military generals and professional strategic implementers usually read his essay for a grandier view of strategy while the solders, the amateur thinkers and field specialists studied the Art of War.

Six Secret Teachings
This book is a great book for "newbies" who are interested in strategic consulting and advising. It consists of six chapters that guide the readers in the art and science of effective strategy and leadership from a top-down mode.

Here is a brief description of Jiang's concepts in a contemporary sense.

The first two "chapters" deal with the duties of the organization and the natural transition of power to the principal rival if the organization fails. This scenario can be described as a "respective" interplay of "yin and yang."

The Civil Strategic Secret
The first chapter stresses the importance of recruiting talent, managing the organization, and valuing developing a proper relationship with your client and your own organization. Once the bond of absolute trust is established, they will intensively listen to you.

The Military Strategic Secret 
The second chapter accentuates the importance of how to prevail over the competition and how to build a territorial domain by the following actions: Cultivating yourself and organizing your own group in order to govern your external settings and pacify the world. The concept of "conquering without a single tactical battle" is also greatly emphasized. (It is similar to Sunzi's concept of "winning a war without a battle.")

The Dragon Strategic Secret 
The emphasis is on how to lead wisely through various situations by understanding and development operational command, order, and liaison.

The Tiger Strategic Secret 
The emphasis is on the tactical essentials, that include matters related to logistics and operations for certain scenarios.

The Leopard Strategic Secret 
This chapter focuses on the tactical specifics for finding the critical path toward completing the objective

The Dog Strategic Secret 
This final chapter focuses on the tactical specifics of trapping the target (i.e., chasing, encircling and intercepting). There are also good points on selecting and training the desired professionals and coordinating the personnel's and resources toward the target.

Other Notes
Understanding and mastering the content from Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 (civil secret teachings and martial secret teachings) is the key to being a good consulting adviser.
These two chapters  indirectly outline the various ways of "suggesting" ideas and perspectives to the principal client for the purpose of gaining the client's trust. .

Our "Cardinal" associate has described the comparison of the concepts behind Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 to  that of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, but with a Daoist perspective.  Those who comprehend the essence of Daoism,  understand what is his point.

From our understanding of chapter three to chapter six,  the ultra class professionals  are usually focused on increasing their strategic effectiveness while the amateurs are centered on implementing operational procedures.

To start an uprising in your competitive arena, you should carefully study those two chapters first.

Trivia
Beside the current batch of PRC military thinkers, the famous Zhang Liang and Zhuge Liang were also readers of the Six Secret Teachings.

The Answer (1)

Q: So, do you know what specifics constitute one competitor to be one or two moves ahead or behind their competition?

A: The answer is in the Sunzi's  Art of War
" ... If I know my team can attack, but do not know the competition cannot be attacked, it is only halfway to victory. If I know the competition can be attacked, but do not realize our team cannot attack, it is only halfway to victory. Knowing that the competition can be attacked, and knowing that our army can attack, but not knowing the terrain is not suitable for combat, is only halfway to victory. Thus one who truly knows the army will never be deluded when he moves, never be impoverished when initiating an action.

Thus it is said if you know them and know yourself, your victory will not be imperiled. If you know Heaven and Earth, your victory can be complete. ... " 

- Paraphrased from Sun Tzu's Art of War 10 (Sawyer's translation)

This is one's approach for staying one to two steps ahead of the competition. 

Compass Rule

If you are able to anticipate two steps ahead of your customers and/or your competition, implement a move that offers a half step advantage.

New Question:

Why would any successful strategist make a strategic move that offers the advantage of being an half step ahead?  

Ask your local Art of War (AoW) strategy expert if he or she knows the answer.  If you look at your copy of the Seven Strategy Classics and the other arcane classics, you might get the right answer. 

The Compass Rule of API (3)

Assess, Position Influence.  That is what most people instinctively do.  They really do not observe, orient, decide and act.  It is an intellectual myth. Those who do, are dreamers or armchair intellectuals who have no sense of mindful awareness. 

Assess, Position and Influence

Assess
After observing their strategic situation and its connection to the Big Tangible Picture, most relevant field strategists assessed their chances  of prevailing before making a decision to commit their time and resources.  This stage also determines where they must positioned themselves before the act of influencing. 

Position
The Position stage is based on the Big Tangible Picture (BTP), their orientation, their disposition and their decision.  The Compass strategists now plan and prepare for the influence.

Influence
The Influence stage concentrates on the conceptual output from the positioning.  [ ...]

If the influence does not work, the strategists return to the assess stage.  Does it sound easy and obvious?  

There are more steps and detailed specifics to our Assess, Position and Influence process.  We will cover that and how it connects to the Grand View, Strategic View and the Tactical View in our future book.

Side note
Those wanna-be "Art of War" cult armchair strategists and weekend warriors should spend some serious time re-reading the classics and mindfully  experience what some of those  strategic classics were striving to say.  Reading the right translations is the first step.   Seeing how it works in real time is the challenge. Embodying the principles requires a certain process model and a unique sense of perception.  

Fwiw, visiting Asian restaurants and learning bad martial arts are not going to improve their strategic skills.

Defining the objective of the situation and the tactical approach to match it is quite difficult.  Building the means to connect the modes to the tactical approach is the grander challenge.

So, is the answer in your copy of the Art of War or PMI's Book of Knowledge?  

Be the professional that you aspired to be, read the Seven Strategic Classics.  Understand the schema of the Big Tangible Picture is the first step.

Summary
"Psychology is Strategy."  - Wang Xu (a paraphrase)


Successful strategists are focused on seeing the Big Picture and not losing the war while the experienced tacticians directed their time, their attention and their resources on winning the significant battles.  Those who properly performed the steps of Assessing, Positioning and Influencing, are strategically efficient.  

One of the Compass keys is to understanding the behavior psychology behind the chief decision makers.

If you are interested in our unique process, please contact us. 

The Dao of the Unorthodox Play (5)

The following article is something that most businesses can learn from the "Russian Blitz" that occurred in the 17th of August 2008. ... The outcome can be described as the immediate effect of properly implemented strategic power

Military Analysis
Russian Blitz Meld Old-School Onslaught With Modern Military Tactics
By Thom Shanker
WASHINGTON — Russia’s victorious military blitz into the former Soviet republic of Georgia brought something old and something new — but none of it was impromptu, despite appearances that a long-frozen conflict had suddenly turned hot.

The Russian military borrowed a page from classic Soviet-era doctrine: Moscow’s commanders sent an absolutely overwhelming force into Georgia. It was never going to be an even fight, and the outcome was predictable, if not preordained.

/// Finding even parity in any "real" competition, is quite rare. The 2 on 1 is the minimum standard in most extreme street fights. ///

At the same time, the Russian military picked up what is new from the latest in military thinking, including American military writings about the art of war, replete with the hard-learned lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan.

/// The emphasis of most strategic classics is to provide the direction and the tactical view for  completing one's own objective.  ...  Most strategic readers (chief decision makers) faltered on their reading of the situations.   They usually become too entrenched with their obsolete belief. ///

So along with the old-school onslaught of infantry, armor and artillery, Russia mounted joint air and naval operations, appeared to launch simultaneous cyberattacks on Georgian government Web sites and had its best English speakers at the ready to make Moscow’s case in television appearances.

If the rapidly unfolding events caught much of the world off guard, that kind of coordination of the old and the new did not look accidental to military professionals.

“They seem to have harnessed all their instruments of national power — military, diplomatic, information — in a very disciplined way,” said one Pentagon official, who like others interviewed for this article disclosed details of the operation under ground rules that called for anonymity. “It appears this was well thought out and planned in advance, and suggests a level of coordination in the Russian government between the military and the other civilian agencies and departments that we are striving for today.”


/// In our modern society,  securing the political-social support of spectators has been a high priority for any relevant competitors.  ///


In fact, Pentagon and military officials say Russia held a major ground exercise in July just north of Georgia’s border, called Caucasus 2008, that played out a chain of events like the one carried out over recent days.

“This exercise was exactly what they executed in Georgia just a few weeks later,” said Dale Herspring, an expert on Russian military affairs at Kansas State University. “This exercise was a complete dress rehearsal.”

///  We presumed that the Russians spent much of their time preparing and rehearsing their implementation. They knew their Big Tangible Picture and were able to perform well-devised scenario modeling sessions.   In summary,  these activities increased their strategic effectiveness.

Russian special ops are famous for their synchronized offensive tactics. ///

Q:  Do you know how to perform scenario modeling?

Compass Rule of Preparation: 
The time that it takes to deploy one's plan is inversely proportional to the time that is spent planning your plan and preparing your team.

Our Compass AE process requires the project implementers to review and rehearse their recently-built Tangible Vision process before connecting to it. ///

Russian commentators have countered that more than 1,000 American military personnel were in Georgia for an exercise last month. But that exercise focused on counterinsurgency operations to prepare a Georgian brigade for duty in Iraq, a different mission than the seizing of territory or denying an aggressor a new stake on the land.

Even as the Russian military succeeded at its most obvious objectives — taking control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, humiliating the Georgian government and crippling the republic’s army and police units — serious shortcomings on the Russian side were revealed during the brief fighting, Pentagon and military officials said.

To the surprise of American military officers, an impaired Georgian air-defense system was able to down at least six Russian jets. The Sukhoi-25, an aging ground attack plane, appeared to be the most vulnerable.

Georgia never has fielded an integrated, nationwide air defense system, and those ground-to-air weapons that survived early Russian shelling operated without any central control — and some without battle-command radars, as they were destroyed by Russian strikes.

That they bloodied the Russian air wing was taken as a clear sign of poor Russian aircraft maintenance, poor Russian piloting skills — or, most likely, years of insufficient funds for adequate flight training.

Russian-language media and unofficial national security Web sites in Moscow, which since the days of the disastrous Soviet foray into Afghanistan have developed a skeptical independent streak, also noted other shortcomings.

A Russian general in command of the 58th Army was wounded in the leg when he led a column of 30 armored vehicles toward the capital of South Ossetia, apparently without sufficient intelligence from scouts on the ground or surveillance aircraft overhead to know a Georgian ambush was awaiting.

The Russians also suffered losses as they came through the Roki Tunnel, which connects South Ossetia to the neighboring region of North Ossetia in Russia proper. Russian national security analysts said there was no air cover to protect Moscow’s forces in their first minutes on Georgian soil outside the safety of the mountain tunnel.

Despite these failings, the Russian military was able to coordinate infantry advances with movement of airborne troops, simultaneously with the deployment of armor and artillery. To be sure, they only had to travel short distances, but Russia was able to inject 9,000 to 10,000 troops, 150 tanks and 700 other armored vehicles onto Georgian territory in the first weekend of fighting, officials said.

Russian warships moved off the coast of Georgia, and Russian special operations forces infiltrated into Georgia through Abkhazia, according to Pentagon and military officials.

“This was not the Russian Army from the humiliation of Afghanistan, and it’s not the Russian military that had to flatten Chechnya to save it,” said one Pentagon official knowledgeable of how the fighting unfolded. Another said: “The Russian military is back. They are to be contended with.”

Despite a recent increase in Russian long-range bomber flights along old, cold war routes near United States airspace, the offensive into Georgia gave little indication of a renewed capacity or renewed interest in global projection of power by the Russians.

But Moscow’s military is wholly capable of pressing the Kremlin’s designs on hegemony over the formerly Communist states along the border that Russian leaders call “the near abroad.”

Russia prepared the battlefield in the months leading up to the outbreak of fighting.

In April, Russia reinforced its peacekeeping force in Abkhazia with advanced artillery, and in May it sent construction troops to fix a railroad line linking that area with Russia.

Georgia’s overmatched army of about 30,000 was able to field four combat brigades of about 3,300 soldiers each.

At the start of the fighting, the Georgian Army’s First Brigade was in Iraq, and subsequently was airlifted home aboard American aircraft — but without their war-fighting gear. The Fourth Brigade was in training for the next rotation to Iraq. The Second and Third Brigades were in western Georgia, closer to Abkhazia than to South Ossetia, where the fighting started.

The American military training for the Georgian troops has been described as involving counterterrorism for domestic security and counterinsurgency for the Iraq mission, with little emphasis on taking ground, holding ground or defending against invasion.

The influx of American training and American support might have left the Georgians feeling that their far smaller military could stand up to Russia in asserting sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

But Georgian command and control withered quickly under the Russian attack, and army and police units were operating on their own, often at cross purposes or overlapping missions.

/// Opposing operational responsibilities usually create internal conflicts. It also wastes time and resources. Poor leadership culture is the usual cause.

With our Compass AE strategic process, the implementers always know their operational objectives and how each objective is connected to each other in a sequentially mode.   ///

Although the Georgian units had been taught that speed of operations brings a mass all its own to the battlefield, and that improving accuracy in firepower brings a mass all its own, the lesson of the conflict is that, in some cases, mass has a mass all its own.

Russia easily smothered the smaller Georgian force.

The Importance of Momentum:
"When torrential water tosses boulders, it is because of momentum; ... When the strike of a hawk breaks the body of its prey, it is because of timing. ... Thus the momentum of one skilled in war is overwhelming, and his attack precisely regulated. His potential is that of a fully drawn crossbow; his timing, the release of the trigger. ... " - Art of War, 5

Source: NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/world/europe/17military.html?pagewanted=all


The Compass View 
Successful professionals of this caliber are usually capable of coordinating and implementing multiple processes in a parallel order.

With a Big Tangible Picture, one can coordinate multiple processes sequentially while anticipating the next step. This reduces the competitor to the stage of grinding one objective at a time. This standard of performance does not always happen when competing against a competitor with greater resources and manpower.

Any project team can achieve this level of performance. They must build a strategic overview  that allows their implementers to view the "multiple process" in a geometric order. By understanding how everything is connected strategically, the team knows how to respond in certain circumstances. 

A project team that connects to their Big Tangible Picture, increases their efficiency while eliminating their redundancy. They are usually pre-positioned to move with momentum. 

In summary, this "automatic blitz" is the way of usurping the competitor's position. One will see more of this approach in business and some sports.

If you are interested in knowing more about our Compass AE process, please contact us at this link.

Side Notes

Scene from White Vengeance

Applying the essence of the strategy classics to real life is the "grand" holy grail of the strategy game.  Combining it with the metaphor of Weiqi (Go) is one of the many goals of some competitively-driven strategists    ...  (There is a psychological flaw to this perspective.  Do you know what it is?) Those who have seen the White Vengeance movie and are quite detail-driven, can identify certain strategic and tactical concepts that were being tactfully applied throughout the story.   

A Side Project Postponed
Many years ago, a project team member wrote an essay that depicts the parallels and the non-parallels between weiqi and the Art of War.  ... Due to the constant piracy of researched material, he decided not to publish it.  ...  When there is time, we might post various bits and pieces of this essay on our blog.   ...  

Fwiw, the weiqi metaphor is constantly used by the various Asian companies. 

The Jiang Tai Gong's View
In China, Jiang Tai Gong book "Six Secret Teachings" is considered to be the "go-to" book for the Big Picture strategic thinkers and operational implementers.

This manuscript 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.

Compass View

• Never allow your competition to use your strategic advantage against you.

Sun Bin: The Art of Warfare (Military Methods) (10)

(Wikipedia)

Do you know how to connect Sun Bin's practical tactical concepts to Sunzi's philosophical principles of strategy?

Sun Bin: The Art of Warfare (Military Methods) (9)

The two "Questions of the Day" are:

• Do you know how to connect the tactical-based principles of Sun Bin to the Art of War?

• Do you know how to utilize the Sun Bin's concept of ruthless efficiency to your advantage?

Sun Bin: The Art of Warfare (Military Methods) (6)

(Wikipedia)

Wei Wei Jiu Zhao (Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao 围魏救赵)

The state of Wei, which was seeking total control of China, sent an army to attack the state of Zhao under the leadership of Pang Juan. The ruler of Zhao immediately asked the ruler of the Qi state for military assistance. Sun Bin was assigned the task of saving the Zhao state. He then devised a scheme of relieving the besieged by besieging the base of the besiegers.

After a long battle, the Wei army relinquished their offensive siege against Zhao as expected, and rushed toward their home state. The army of "Qi" then maneuvered ahead of them and laid an ambush on the way, inflicting a crushing defeat on the army of Wei.

Business Example

In 1982, Bendix corporation attempted to takeover Martin Marietta. Martin Marietta returns the favor by attempting the Pac-Man Defense.

Martin Marietta targeted United Technologies toward the heart of Bendix Corporation. Bendix immediately asked Allied Corporation to absorbed them. Martin Marietta retains their independence.

Three Questions from the Compass Desk

What was going though Sun Bin mind's when he was thinking about this situation of Wei and Zhao?

What was in his Big Tangible Picture when Sun Bin was thinking about the sieging of Zhao?

Why is this stratagem categorized in the 36 Stratagems category of "Advantageous Stratagems?"

The Two Questions of the Day

For the hardcore strategist, why are the final six stratagems of the 36 Stratagems being used in "desperate situations?"

What are the risk consequences for using this set of stratagems?

The answers are not directly in your copy of the Art of War. Of course, you do have to play with the principles in an indirect way in order to get the answer.

The Question of the Day

How does one assess their competition with Sunzi's strategic principles?

One cannot effectively plan if he/she does not understand the configuration of their competitor.

The Question of the Day

Do you know how to connect the Art of War principles to the game of Go (weiqi)?

Ask your "local" Sunzi reader/expert if he/she knows how to do it.

If you want to learn how to strategize and operate in a multi-front situation, we recommended that you learn how to play this game. While it takes eight to ten minutes to learn the basics, you would need a lifetime to master the scheme.

So, do you have the time to learn the game and master it?

For advanced strategic thinkers, there is a way to apply the 36 Stratagems to the game of GO. Whether he or she has the time to learn it, is a different story.

Sun Bin: The Art of Warfare (Military Methods) (2)

Following is a list of tactics that Sun Bin was famous for:

• Shedding the Shell Like a Cicada (金蝉脱壳 Jin Chan Tuo Ke )
• Horse Racing for Tianji (田忌赛马 Tian Ji Sai Ma)
• Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao (围魏救赵 Wei Wei Jiu Zhao)
• Reducing (the Display of) Stoves to Deceive the Opposition (减灶惑敌 Jian Zao Huo Di)

We will focus on the specifics for each tactic in future posts

Ask your local Sunzi (Sun Tzu) expert, whether he/she knows what is the grand strategic point that connects to all four tactics?"

Seeing the Dao of Everything

"In planning, never a useless move.

In strategy no step is in vain. .." -Chen Hao

In the "Year of the Dragon", President Obama (and his team) made the right political move to visit San Francisco's Chinatown. ... The President presented his brand of leadership by establishing the act of credibility with some of his vast voter base. He methodically displayed the courage of leaving his car and began the process of "meeting and greeting" with some of the residents of San Francisco's Chinatown while picking up some Chinese food. This act of being benevolent, also displayed the image of wisdom to the Chinese residents. ...

# Update: The above act is a political flavor of implemented strategic power. Do you know why?

Source: KTVU

Exemplary leadership is about properly demonstrating an assortment of actions relating to wisdom, credibility, benevolence, courage and discipline to the right people at the right time. ... Smart political leaders of all sorts who are mindfully aware, usually performed this deed quite well.

Seeing the Dao of their settings usually enables one to shape their grand terrain and its "connecting" secondary terrains. ... One who consistently connects these dots, will eventually succeed in the information-based opportunity economy.

Remember, macro coincidences are usually scripted.

A Comment from the Compass Desk

When both team's tendencies, hangups and weaknesses are thoroughly identified and pinpointed by each side, the fans should always expect a low scoring game. ...

Final Score: N.Y. Giants: 21 New England Patriots 17

In a near-predictable setting, most people are focused on implementing their strengths and rarely are focused on implementing a surprise play. ... The configuration of their decision process are usually based on their knowledge and their belief of what the other side knows. In most cases, each competitor would sit back and waited for the other person to make a major err.

Fwiw, there is a psychological reason for that type of decision management process. Do you know what it is? ... If you know the answer, do you know what is the counter approach for this mode of conservative decision-making?

We were slightly surprised that Coach Belichick and Tom Brady (QB) did not run any real trick plays during the early phase of the Super Bowl game. Their offense did not gain any real momentum for most of the game until the end of the halves. They stayed with their strengths.

Certain people should now retire their copies of the Art of War (or at least update it) until the next football season.