I finally got to The Art of War. I had been intrigued by this book for a while. Tony Soprano praised it in one of the first seasons of the Sopranos. Someone else recommended it to me as a book for people interested in management.
Maybe I’m just unimaginative, but most of The Art of War really is about war, about strategy, spies, misleading your enemy, and obtaining a military advantage. It’s not so much a management primer.
Sun Tzu advocates burning the boats, breaking the cooking pots, and setting fire to the stores of grain to motivate the troops (Chapter XI, aphorism 23). While effective, these options are typically unavailable to me. He also advocates hiding information from the team (Chapter XI, aphorism 35-36), and using spies (Chapter XIII). Perhaps the opponent’s spies make hiding info from the team a necessity, but I’m hoping I can skip both of those instructions.
In many places, Sun Tzu counsels the reader not to make a move except when certain of victory.
“Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical.” Chapter XII, aphorism 17
While I understand that this level of care is crucial in battle, again, I’m not sure about this one for management. Given that much of what we do at a web company isn’t life or death, I prefer “make mistakes faster” as a guiding principle. Get things out where they can be tested, rather than lurk until the perfect conditions appear.
He does talk about leadership, about bonding your team and about how crucial clear direction, defined roles, discipline, and organization are. Hmmm, agreed, though I think I got more out of First Break All the Rules.
Maybe I’m just not sufficiently strategically minded to appreciate or apply this book, or maybe the book really is more about war than anything else.
When lives are on the line, making mistakes faster is probably not the best approach 😉
It’s possible that the difference here is one of context and a taxonomy of “projects” is in order (website? Make Mistakes Faster; war? Move not lest victory be assured). I suspect, however, that there are, rather, two opposing personality types that are drawn to these competing philosophies/rules of thumb. If one tends toward thinking before acting, one likely needs the goad that MMF offers to kick oneself out of analysis and into action (I, for example, find it a very attractive approach and absolutely addictive as an organizational philosophy). If, on the other hand, one tends toward precipitous action — “shoot ’em all and let God sort it out” — then a schema that pushes one to consider ones action in terms of strategy and frames non-action *not* as weakness but as tactic — is just what one needs to achieve success. No one ever had to tell a Caesar or a Patton to “make mistakes faster” – no hesitation to use their footmen as fodder in the pursuit of their goals ever made them hesitate to act. So, war is in some ways the natural context for Sun Tzu’s advice, but evidently this same sort of personality is quite successful in the upper echelons of business. Which is better? A conscientious agent who has to be encouraged to act without concern for possible mistakes, or an action-oriented agent who needs to be reminded that some actions are better than others? I lean greatly toward the former — regardless of context — but it may well be that this is an irreducible dichotomy and a successful venture needs both… [That went on much longer than I expected 😉 Hope I managed to stay coherent. Always fun to read your blog!]