Sun Tzu's strategy does not focus on destroying enemies. In is a productive strategy, designed to build up positions that others want to join rather than attack. Destruction is avoided for economic reasons: it is too costly to lead to long-term success. Sun Tzu saw positions as being built of two opposite but complementary aspects: competitive skills and productive skills. Sun Tzu drew a clear distinction between the inward focus on productivity and the external focus of competition but they are intimately connected. He separated these the skills of the warrior and army and the skills of the worker and nation. (1.9 Competition and Production).
Competitive strategy of Sun Tzu is the warrior's skill of making good decisions about conditions in complex, fast-changing, external environments. Following an operational plan is the worker's skill of working in pre-defined functions in an internal, stable, controlled environment. Warrior's Rules teach us to adapt to events rather than expect events to conform to our plans. Navigating the world of daily external challenges requires a different set of skills than step-by-step planning. Peter Drucker, the dean of modern management, fought strongly against the idea that "strategic planning" was about planning tomorrow's responses to future events today. As our world grows more competitive, following a plan offers less of a competitive advantage than it once did.
The Science of Strategy Institute teaches the warrior's skills of adaptive response. There are many organizations that teach planning. We offer a set of tools for a very different kind of decisions making, one that allows us to leverage unexpected events to our benefit. While planning is necessary, the much rarer skill, especially in our own era, is good decision-making under pressure.
Controlled and Uncontrolled Environments
Planning follows a series of steps to produce a well-defined result. It is also known as linear thinking. Planning works within controlled environments. In areas that we control, planning is is not only useful but necessary. We call these areas our span of control (1.9.2 Span of Control)
A warrior's understanding starts with the humble acceptance that most of the world is outside our control. In our fast-changing competitive world, critical events can come from any direction at any time. Sticking rigidly to our plans in the face of game-changing events is foolish. We must know how to make decisions that leverage changing conditions (1.9.1 The Strategic Arena).
Where Adaptability is Required
Even 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu saw that losers clung to their plans like an excuse while winners responded to the dynamics of their situation. Instead of a series of pre-planned steps, Sun Tzu's rules provide a perspective that allows us to respond correctly to conditions and events as they happen. While These three areas of study are called position awareness, opportunity development, and situation response.
The Competitive and Productive Realms
Warrior skills win the resources needed to be productive, and productivity creates the resources need to be competitive. Both productive planning and competitive skills are necessary. Together, they create the resources and need for each other in a cycle. The control of advanced planning and the adjustments of strategic positioning both require human creativity, but they require different methods to apply that creativity. The problem is that our knowledge of planned production has overshadowed our understanding of competitive strategy.
