Strategic Assessments (8)
Master Sun: “Every general has heard of these five things. Those who know them prevail, those who do not know them do not prevail.”
Zhang Yu writes: “Everyone has heard of these five things, but only those who deeply understand the principles of adaptation and impasse will win.”
Adaptation: Skillful Talent Strategists contrast and compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of their own organization’s with those of opponents. They pay particular attention to the gaps that may exist in their own positioning.
They reflect on how they might turn weakness into strength (through adaptation). They consider how the strengths of an opponent might be turned into a weakness (inducing an impasse).
When a strategist discovers that they cannot attack, they regard this as an impasse and consider which moves or adaptations might result in developing the momentum needed to shift the balance of factors in their favor. They do not delegate the process of strategic assessment to third parties.
Strategic thinkers take input from everywhere but keep their own counsel. They dispassionately evaluate the strategic, tactical and operational dimensions of their organization’s capabilities and relentlessly return to the question of how victory can be assured before the campaign is initiated.
Talent Warriors who practice the craft of strategy are disciplined in that they plan, direct, organize, and control the recruiting function in alignment with the strategic business objectives established by senior management. They adhere to Clausewitz’s military doctrine by first making their base secure.
They don’t engage in competition for talent without first having determined their strategy. They do not dare to deploy tactics or resources randomly. They do not allow the operational effectiveness of their efforts to be impeded by amateurs advancing internal political agendas or by third parties seeking to profit at the expense of the best interests of their clients.
Recruiting leaders do not take such interference lightly nor do they underestimate the potential corrosive impact of the individual persons. They use professionalism and productivity to blunt the spears of internal political opponents. They uphold fiduciary responsibility in order to weaken the hold of third party meddlers on the internal dynamics of the recruiting process and the integrity of their teams.
Talent Warriors regard themselves as stewards of organizational culture. They apply the principles of adaptation and impasse to safeguard the interests of their communities.
Application: Adaptation means changing within the context of events. The appraisals that talent strategists make are not for self-aggrandizement nor are they made with an attitude that concerns itself with such trifles as who the better person may be. Their appraisal is impersonal. In fact it may well be impossible to truly understand Sun Tzu’s world and the philosophy underlying The Art of War without embracing and applying the principle of impersonality.
Applying the principles of adaptation and impasse cannot be done effectively if the context of the initial analysis of one’s opponent is personal. In our western (American) culture perhaps the most memorable recent illustration of this in cinema occurs in The Godfather, when Michael Corleone tells his brothers about his plan to shift the balance of strategic forces in his family’s struggle to maintain autonomy in the face of an apparently superior enemy, when he is made to say: “It’s not personal, it’s just business.”
The depth of the principal of impersonality runs much deeper in the philosophy that underlies The Art of War. In the eastern view of things there is ultimately no person to take into consideration. If you believe that people and things exist in dependence upon their causes and in no other way, then the predominance of personality and relative importance of personal considerations are cast in a much different light.
Much more important than the persons involved in a conflict are the causes, elements and forces in play. While rulers may have their personal reasons for going to war, the business of the general is impersonal consideration of the causes and conditions that will result in victory or defeat.
Understanding adaptation as the ancients did depends on our ability to center ourselves in a state of inner equilibrium that is beyond personality, as we understand it in the west. This stabilization of the mind and its faculties in meditative equipoise is the result of training and conditioning that often begins in childhood and is practiced daily over the course of a lifetime.
The adept general (of Sun Tzu’s era) arrives on the battlefield with profound calm and deep composure flowing from an inner reservoir of quiescence and tranquility. The notion of bringing inner peace to bear on outer conflict is perhaps foreign to many in our frenetic society but it is nonetheless the approach cultivated over countless generations by eastern strategists and military leaders. It is not simply the calm before the storm. It is, in fact, the calm within the storm.
The general is like the eye of a hurricane or the empty center of a tornado. While the storm rages without, he calmly directs the flow of battle from within. It is not simply sound judgment that enables the adept general to secure victory. It is rather the wisdom born of the practice of self-knowledge and the transcendence of personality that is the principle attribute of victorious commanders according to The Art of War.
Thus overcoming outward impasse through adaptation is made easier by the rigors of daily practice and unrelenting self-criticism. Having gotten over himself the leader is empowered to clearly see those weaknesses in others that he has surmounted within himself, and he can get over on them. As it is in written in The Book of Leadership & Strategy, no one can know it in another without first knowing it in oneself. Or as the noble Romans believed, He who conquers himself conquers the world.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 10:44 am and is filed under The Art of War for Talent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
No comments yet.