Master Sun: “The terrain is to be assessed in terms of distance, difficulty or ease of travel, dimension and safety.”

Zhang Yu: “In any military operation, it is important first to know the lay of the land. When you know the distance to be traveled, then you can plan whether to proceed directly of by a circuitous route. When you know the difficulty or ease of travel, then you can determine the advantages of infantry or mounted troops. When you know the dimension of the area, then you can assess how many troops you need, many or few. When you know the relative safety of the terrain, then you can discern whether to do battle or disperse.”

Adaptation: One way of understanding terrain is that it is the context within which your campaign will unfold. Talent Strategists apply their understanding of the markets they compete in by taking circumstance (organizational posture) and situation (marketplace realities) into consideration. Over time they learn to visualize statistical abstractions as physical space (terrain).

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