Sun Tzu taught a set of powerful methods for winning constructively in competition. The Science of Strategy Institute's multiple award-winning work makes the strategy of The Art of War easier to use.
Read our daily article on Sun Tzu's Warrior's Rules to retrain your instinctive reactions to competitive situations. Learn all Sun Tzu's rules as we go through our publication schedule.
"You can do it with small attacks.
You can destroy the men of a nation."
Sun Tzu's The Art of War 3:3:5-6
We cannot be successful if we fail to understand the critical relationship between safety and power. Most people confuse size with power. Large efforts seem more powerful even when they entail taking greater risks. This gets the formula for power exactly backwards. Properly understood, small moves are not only safer but more powerful. We cannot confuse a small, concentrated action with a weak, half-hearted one. The problem is that many of us do not know how to concentrate our actions to create power and minimize risk simultaneously.
Powerful actions are concentrated. The safest way to test the potential of new opportunities is also the most powerful. The easiest way to minimize our risks is to limit the size of our experiments. The easiest way to create powerful actions is to concentrate our efforts in size. The most powerful actions are small, local, and quick.
The following rules define how we create focused power.
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