Review: The Art of War - SUN TZU

About:

Know when to fight and when not to fight: avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak. Know how to deceive the enemy: appear weak when you are strong when you are weak. Know your strengths and weaknesses: if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

The Art of War has been considered the definitive text on military strategy and warfare even since the being written in ancient China around 500BC, inspiring Businesses, athletes and of course generals to beat their opponents and competition the right way until today.

The author-name is Sun Tzu, and he was a Chinese general, philosopher and military strategist. His book, The Art of War, is the most influential strategy text in all of East Asia. It was divided into 13 chapters, each dedicated to a different aspect of warfare.

The Art of War:

The reason this book is so popular around the world is that most of the lessons can be translated directly to other, competitive fields, like sports or business. In order to make it more actionable, we'll look at it in a business context.

Here are 3 lessons from Master Sun Tzu:

1. Only enter battles you know you can win.
2. Deceive your competition to make them do what you want.
3. Lead your team as if you were leading a single man by the hand.

Lesson 1: Only Enter battles you know you can win:-

Winners know when to fight and when not to fight. Losers always fight and thus often end up losing it.

Fools enter battles and start thinking about how to win.

Strategists know how they're going to win before they even start to battle.

Have you ever thought about the fact that the most skilful fighters often avoid battles and that's why they rarely get defeated?

Take Bobby Fisher, for instance. The most Brilliant chess player of all time instantly retreated, after he won the world championship, not playing again for 20 years.

So if you are starting a business, look at the industry first. Can you even win against your biggest competitors? And if not, is there a different niche you can fill?

Only Enter the battle if you know you can win.

Lesson 2: Deceive your competition to impose your will on them:-

Mask strengths with weakness, courage with timidity and order with disorder, Sun Tzu says:

A clever army will win not with bodies, but with their minds

Making it seems like you're miles away when you're close to the enemies base with distractions, or surprise attacking in several places to splinter opposing forces are common tactics in the battlefield.
They're based on deceit and supposed to make the enemy do what you want them to do.
In business, you can do the same. I'm always baffled to discover insanely profitable and dominating businesses, which, on the front-end, appears like they're a mom-and-pop store.

There are endless examples are there, humbleness and modesty are a great way to throw off competitors -even if they might be your default setting, like Noah's, who the founder.

Lesson 3: Lead your team as if you were leading a single man by the hand:-

Eventually, your business will need a team. And eventually, that team will have to grow. But as companies get bigger, they get more complex.

Every single human adds an infinite amount of feelings, thoughts and ideas to a business and all those have to be managed.

When talking about armies, Sun Tzu says:

A skilled general leads his army, as if he was leading a single man by the hand

Whether you're managing a big army or a small one, the tools are the same: Break them down into smaller groups and then use clear signals to steer them in the right direction.
In business, that means teams should stay small, 3-4 people are often a good number to cooperate, before things get too complicated.
Then you can set clear signals like sales targets, tools to use, and a daily morning briefing, to make sure everyone's on track.
Never forget 1-on-1 interaction with everyone on your team, just because if you treat your employees like family, they'll be just as loyal.