Art of War

I am currently quite enchnated by Art of War and it's application to the modern management.

What follows is a short analysis of my understanding of the ancient text with my application to the modern management.

Part 1 Laying Plans
As per Tsun Zu, the following five things must be kept in mind when planning for a war:

1. The moral law – causes people to follow the leader in complete accord, undismayed by danger
2. Heaven – night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons
3. Earth – distances, great and small, danger and security, open ground narrow passes; the chances of life and death
4. Commander stands for virtues of –
1. wisdom
2. sincerity
3. benevolence
4. courage
5. strictness
5. Discipline – divisions , budgeting and maintenance of roads for supply lines

And as a note of warning:

As circumstances are favourable, one should modify one’s plans.

Modern management

If you apply the above principles to modern management, the following things become clear:

The first point talks about the importance of the Principles and the Processes in an organization. The work done should not be dependent on any individuals. People should be trained in such a way so that they know the right from the wrong in the business. Constant monitoring is not possible.

The next two points seems to tell that in a business, you have cycles. Learn it and try to leverage it. For example, there is a product life cycle, starting with the initial introduction, followed by growth phase, the stabilizing mature phase and the decline phase. Or there is also the Hype cycle for technology where something new becomes a buzzword, then falls as a passing fad by when people start to realize the new concept/product’s real importance followed by a plateau of productivity.

The 4th point describes the qualities of a leader of the organization. As a leader, the person should have the perspective to understand, analyze and solve the issues, take the courage and enter new territories, if necessary. There will always be tough challenges with people becoming trying to follow their own agenda. Here’s the strictness that’s necessary while benevolence is the need for the leader to share the success and attribute to the team rather than hog the entire limelight for himself / herself.

The next point stresses the importance of maintaining a systematic approach to running the organization with the concentrating on the important aspects and ensuring that in the quest for seeking new land or markets, the one that supplies the daily bread and butter is not lost. The need to plan and budget for the future would ensure that there is a clear focus and with the discipline, there would be a constant metric on the progress to decide if the correct path is being followed.

Part 2 Attack by Strategem
As per Tsun Zu,
Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:
(1) He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
(2) He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
(3) He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
(4) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
(5) He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.

Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Management lesson
This simple chapter explains nothing but the modern SWOT analysis. Look carefully and what Sun Tzu seems to be saying is the first do a clear SWOT analysis of your position, analyze the forces that are operating on the market (Porter's 5 forces model) and identify the your position (PESTEL factors). Once these analysis are done, you'll get a clear picture of what your business is, where it is heading, what it is doing and what it should be doing, who are the competitors and how well are they doing and where to attack them in terms of competition.

The last quote is so beautiful that essentially says that unless you know the what, why, how and when of your own operations and strategy, analyzing the competition is simply a lost game.