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.

Competing in the Info Economy: Understanding the Deception Game

Whether one is located in Silicon Valley or in London or anywhere else, a game of deception could be subtly implemented onto their terrain. It is quite important that he/she is always mindfully aware of what is indirectly happening around their settings.

Food for Thought

During your daily assessment of the Big Tangible Picture , are you able to identify a deception that could be operating within the confines of your settings?

Summary

If one is properly assessing their settings, then the odds of "getting spinned" are lowered.

To thrive in uncertain settings, it is important for that person to focus on completing their own priority objective while being mindfully aware of their own settings (and beyond). ... The key to strategic assessment is to pay strict attention to the right specifics while working on connecting the dots.

For the AoW audience, what chapter can you find that point?

Thriving in the Info Economy (2)

To thrive in the information economy, the smart strategists cautiously avoid and evade the many visual and audio distractions around our chaotic-filled settings.

To get an alternative view, we recommended our audience to visit Cook Ding Kitchen and Jade Dragon.com.

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.

Understanding the Competition (2)

wikimedia.org

Some of the Super Bowl viewers are quietly predicting the victor of today's game. Some of the factors that were being used to make their prediction are quite interesting.

Here is an abridged list of those factors:

• the team colors;
• the favorite uniform numbers;
• the sentimental reasons;
• the quality of quarterbacks;
• the wins and losses record for each team;
• the current streak of wins;
• the recent two minute scoring drives;
• the number of sacks per game; and
• the number of interceptions per game.

There is no home field advantage.

A Mini Assessment From the Compass Desk

Here is our abridged listing of general strategic factors that we are using to predict the possible winner:

• the injury factor;
• the better defense;
• the balance of the offensive game;
• the quality of competition;
• the giveaway and takeaway factor; and
• the momentum of winning over superior competition.

Do your homework. Focus your attention on understanding who has the better strategic power in terms of their competitive disposition, their capitalization of opportunities, their effectiveness of timed execution, their display of illusions and reality. Identify the various categories of mismatches (i.e, offense vs. defense, QB vs. MLB and FS, the offensive line vs. the defensive line, etc.) and you might discover who could be the winner before the game begins.

Then, take the data and implement the Compass process. ... It is that simple. Or is it?

Question of the Day

What strategic and tactical factors have you used to assess your company and your competition?

Big Tangible Picture

We believed that both coaches have a deep understanding of the tendencies of each other so well that they might play it conservatively in the beginning of the game. Based on history, I expected that Coach Belichick is going to implement his arsenal of unorthodox plays to unnerve his competition during the early stage of the game. He and Brady will be looking for poor defensive responses while creating new opportunities through the various schemes of mismatching.

Unorthodox stratagems (trick plays) sometimes do not matter in a near-predictable setting if one's team has the superior (and experienced) manpower who could adjust to any unique changes.

# note: We will talk about the rules of implementing unorthodox stratagems and playing the contrarian card in a future post.

If the New England Patriots score on the first two drives with their no huddle offense and if the NY Giants are able to responded to it, one usually expected the game to go on a high scoring momentum at least for the first half of the game. ... We would not be surprised to see the Giants play the no-huddle offense option since the Patriots "bend but don't break" defense is technically questionable. The injury factor plays a significant role within the Patriots defense and the Patriots offense. ... Do not be surprised if the Patriots run more blitz packages in certain defense situations.

Summary

Due to the settings of the competitive terrain and the comprehension of both teams tendencies by both coaches, some of us think that the total score of this game is going to be under the line of 54 points.

What-If Situations

If the Patriots secured a minimum of a 10-point lead (early in the game), the Patriots will usually run up the score. ... Lets presumed that the game becomes a shootout or a possible slaughter, some of us are choosing the NYG to win.

If the game becomes very close, the New England Patriots team has a good chance of winning. ...

Another situation is the game becomes a shootout and goes overtime, there is a chance that the total score of the game would go over the line of 54 points.

* Side note: When assessing and positioning through planning, do you practice the art and the process of scenario modeling?

What is your call? ... (The answer is not in your copy of the Art of War.)

# update at 14:38 hr pst

Compass Trend (10): Employing the Health-Perfect Employees

In order to minimize their costs and maximize their operational efficiency, some of the companies are now demanding the employment of non-smoking employees. From the employers viewpoint, they have to achieve the minimum costs at all levels. We believed that this trend has the potential to become the standard for lower tier employees. Sooner or later, these companies will only employ people who possessed the near-perfect food diet.

The standards of employment are now being raised in our minimum-growth economy. The exception to this "possible" norm is the person who generates a great amount of profit that exceeds the cost by 10 x's.

In summary, staying ahead of the curve means that one must stay focused on the various political, economic, social and technological influences that are appearing in our performance-driven society.

Compass Trend (9): Automation, Self Service and Other Matters

We have been briefing you on the effect of automation in our information economy. Some of you could have noticed that the upswing of automation usually come with the negative effect of low labor growth.

The next target of automation is now being implemented in the police department. Due to the current state of the economy, what is the chance that there will be more foot patrol?

Self Service

As mentioned in a previous post, self service is the other "hot" trend. It is only a matter of time where the majority of the fast food companies and the utility companies will be automating most of their services in the various regions. We believed that most of the "one on one" services will be provided by companies that are catered toward the upper middle tier and the upper tier of the social-economic value chain.

Playing the Cyclical Game

The quantity of the quality competition and the supply of a specific item usually determine the price of the demanded item. This rule is one of the many drivers that have pushed the information economy forward.

To gain the strategic positional edge of their grand setting, one must understand the uniqueness of those demand cycles and the dynamic pricing (variable ticket pricing) of their business situation.

Questions to Think about

Have automation, self service and low-wage labor affected your region? Can you see how it might affect you and your company now and later?

Do you have a tangible process that enables you to organizes and prioritizes your objectives and approaches, by connecting it to the Big Tangible Picture(BTP). If so, has it helped you set the pace of your workflow?

Are you utilizing your process to stay ahead of the curve?

To stay ahead of changes and your competition, you have to spend some time reflecting on the causes and the after-effect of your actions.

Ask yourself these three questions:

• Did today's activities assisted you in terms of meeting your long-term objectives?
• Are you ahead or behind the curve?
• Are you still on that path of achieving strategic effectiveness?

Then, use the answers as a foundation for reviewing one's strategic position.

We will discussed more about this matter in a later post.