Category: Review

Technically, this is week seven in the review of this book and it would be considered chapter six. Translation variation makes it a little difficult to search by the title of the chapter. So, it is more fruitful to search for ‘Chapter Six’ rather than ‘Vacuity and Substance’. That is a tip that I have learned throughout this process if you want to do more supplemental research.

If you are a fan of Yin/Yang then you will love this chapter. Pretty much all of the points discussed contain this sort of context. In general terms the concepts are strong versus weak, first versus second, win versus lose, whole versus divided, offensive versus defensive, you get the point.

Maybe this chapter would be more insightful if we put ourselves back 2500 years ago? A lot of what was discussed seemed fairly common knowledge today when it comes to tactics. For instance, going on offense causes the opponent to devote resources to defense. When you are focused on defense, then it is not possible to execute your own offensive strategy. Hence, it is better to be on the offense rather than the defense.

An army that can split the opponents has a strength advantage. This is because it is easier to execute power when it is concentrated. This is a pretty common realization in business. When you try to do too many things, you may dilute efforts to the very most important efforts.

The most important concept I zeroed in on this chapter was at the end. To paraphrase, it basically says that there are no guarantees in victory. Or said another way, unpredictable things can always happen. By proxy, the best plans should be somewhat fluid or able to adapt if and or when the terrain is different than planned.

I think a very good example is the tragedy with Hurricane Helene. Some people left Florida to avoid the hurricane. On the surface, it seems like a very smart idea. However, spending the week in Ashville turned out to be a fatal error. As someone that lived hundreds of miles from the South Carolina coast, I would not have figured that to be a risk. But as Sun Tzu points out, things that you cant control sometimes happen.

Ninety nine times out of 100, going to Ashville would be a win win. Escape danger and have a nice vacation. This just happened to be the unforeseeable scenario. What if I have spent my whole life saving for retirement and I get killed in a car accident at 65? Would that have been a waste? I would say that there are some times that you just cannot plan for and those are the things that you cannot worry about.

However, if you are planning your whole working for life to retire and you lose your job at 63, that is a plan that needs to have some overlay flexibility. People that take reasonable risk mitigation into account in their plans are the smart ‘generals’. I honestly didn’t think that Tzu was encouraging planning for the car wreck but it is always illustrative to go to the extreme to drive the point home.

End Your Programming Routine: It is hard for me to say that Sun Tzu has caused this philosophy to be common place or that he was simply the first to document the obvious. Regardless, it is probably good to refresh on the fundamentals because it is really common for organizations to get lost in the tress. Sometimes it happens when you just try to do one more thing and pretty soon you are doing ten mediocre tasks rather that one strong one. For that reason, it is helpful to stand back and check yourself once and a while. That is a better strategy for flexibility and flexibility is the key to more victories.

I read a bunch of these chapters in a row when my son was at a doctor’s appointment. A few weeks later I re-read this chapter again and last night I re-read it again. This particular chapter is more abstract then the ones I have reviewed thus far. Truth be told, I didn’t get much out of it by reading multiple times. I was hoping that if I kept banging my head and then letting it rattle around for a while it would come to me.

As a result, I went to the internet to get a hint. It is like those 3D pictures that you stare and stare until you see it. I guess that I would say that I see it, but it is not direct. This chapter is about leadership and it uses some very some very aloof analogies to make the point.

Part of the reason that it is so abstract is because this chapter is riddled with eastern philosophy. I am no expert in that, in fact I can barely recognize it. The two strongest ones were Yin and Yang (I recognized that one) and the order of fives. I had no idea that the Chinese thought that there were five notes, five colors and five flavors (that seems familiar). While I am familiar about some of those ideas, mastering the practice is a life long endeavor.

With that in mind, I am not sure exactly how the technique of go hard/go soft is actually a successful military tactic. I suppose that I could take it as far as tactics are situational. That seems intuitive at least. But, since this chapter is about leadership, I have heard it say that the best leaders know how to motivate people by a mixture of toughness and softness. I won’t say it is common sense because I have come across a lot of bad leaders but at least it feels right.

Without reading the cliff notes, I picked the last section as what I thought was the most impactful section of this chapter. The text talks about logs and rocks as sort of moving as a result of natural consequences. It is the leader that positions the logs and rocks to roll down the hill and stay stationary on a flat surface. Or said another way, the leader is the one to own the battle’s win or loss results. That is something I can get behind.

Many times I think that leaders get too much credit without enough blame. Let us think about the President for a moment. Whether we will have one or the other as president, it generally won’t change the temperature in my pool so to speak. When the economy was on fire in the late 1990s, Clinton didn’t do that. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time. W Bush didn’t cause the financial crisis of 2008, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now, he didn’t do himself any favors by continuing to support money printing under the federal reserve. He also got lucky that financial takeovers stopped the economy from totally failing. But to actions that he did personally as president had little to do with the overall outcome. What I am trying say is that leaders enable the conditions for success or failure. Depending on whether they guess right or not has potential outcomes.

You can bet that if we see a President Harris, that administration will be open to communing with socialists. You can also bet that if we see a President Trump, that administration will be open with Oligarchs. Both will be dreaming about a Fascist future. Because that is our destiny, it will likely be so. Tell me, what would I credit either with? Certainly not a better future based on American ideals. But they won’t do it by themselves, the constituents, the appointees and the people working the system will be the ones doing the work. Only the accountability goes to the leader.

End Your Programming Routine: In the end, I agree that leaders should be accountable. I also agree that there are many things that can be done to influence the results. But ultimately, leaders design the boat, they don’t make it sail. If their design for a sail boat contains no sail, then obviously that is going to fail. Putting the proper boat in the water isn’t going to guarantee that it sails either. There are factors like having wind that we just cannot control.

I think that I read this chapter at least five times. One, it is very short at two pages and two, I was really trying to get the significance of this chapter. I have to say that I very well may need to reach as whatever was conveyed was very subtle. I feel like this chapter is grabbing at things already mentioned.

The list below are the key things that I took out of this chapter.

• first make yourself unconquerable, then you can conquer.
• If you can defend yourself then you can be victorious.
• first measurement, second estimation, third calculation, fourth weighing, fifth victory.

At first read, I thought the last bullet was the significant one. It is intended to be a progression. Measure what you can, then estimate the totality from the measurement, then calculate what that means in terms of strength, weigh your odds against your estimation and then you will be victorious. I was thinking about how I would write about this and the significance and I decided to read again.

I think bullets one and two are variations on each other. With more thought, I think that this is the significant message of the chapter. I am going to explain what I mean using an analogy that is not military related.

There is a lot of things that I am not. I am not a military man and I am also not a football man. That being said, I have watched the game for most of my life. So, while I don’t have first hand knowledge, I have heard many times how coaches hate the procedural penalties. Those would be offsides, false start, improper lineup and those sorts of things.

To the layman, it would seem like five yards is no big deal most of the the time. You don’t lose the down and it is half of the more severe penalties like 10 yards for holding. I feel that way anyway. But these are what the announcers always pronounce as adding up to beating yourself. Using Sun Tsu’s philosophy, you are much more likely to win if you don’t beat yourself.

I could be wrong, but I believe that Sun Tsu speaks in generalities. He has to be because using football again some teams still consistently win despite having too many penalties. The fact remains that when you look at the perennial champions they often rank in the lowest tiers for penalties. So, while it is not a guarantee that you will lose, the data says that it is statistically more likely. I have to believe that the same is true with war.

End Your Programming Routine: Whether it is playing football or investing for retirement, we cannot expect to consistently do well if we continue to beat ourselves. It may seem like common sense, at least it does to me but that may not have been the case 3000 years ago. We are fortunate to have most of the tools and information readily available so there really is no excuse to beat yourself in what you are pursuing.

I am just guessing that part of the continuity of the book is lost in translation. This chapter is kind of disjointed as a collection tidbits about strategy. I am not saying that it is not valuable, it is just hard to get in the flow of things when it is just a collection of facts. I have taken the luxury of summarizing all of what I consider the important things below.

The following are the things that I gleaned from this chapter.

• It is better to save the capitol. Saving the army is better than destroying the army. Subjugation is the superior strategy.
• The order of strategy should be as the following. Attack the plans, then the allies, then the army, then finally the fortifications.
• Recommendations for troop strength.
  • 10x surround them
  • 5x attack them
  • 2X split your army
  • 1x hold the line.
• Leadership principles
  • Those who know when to fight will win.
  • Those who know how to employ appropriate sized forces will win.
  • Leaders who have aligned their ranks will win
  • The prepared will be victorious
  • Leaders that are not interfered with by politicians will win.

I have never been a general nor even in the army. So, what I read seems reasonable. It also seems to be colloquial wisdom: if your troops are aligned, if you know when to attack, if you are prepared, it goes on and on as you can read then your chances of winning are better.

How is this helpful to something other than military operations? Or said another way, how can we use this as wisdom for business or life? If I use the thinnest of attempts to make this relevant to something other than the context I could probably come up with some similar allegories. Something like storm/norm/perform.

I think that successful sports teams align up and down the divisions. I observe that the most consistent high school teams have funnels up to their programs. They run the similar play books so that they are already into the system by the time that they get there. This is an example of aligning up and down the ranks.

That isn’t exactly the best storming example. In those cases you are either agreeing to the terms or you are not participating. But, the fact remains that the coaches are getting players to buy into the system or executing a principle of Sun Tsu. They are vertically integrating the entire age range of a sport to be the most successful at the highest level.

Its hard to rationalize a military concept in a non-military setting. For instance, playing a potentially deadly maneuvers, attacking strategy rather than risking life and limb seems like a better way to run an army. Only risk physical injury when it is necessary. That being said, we do have examples sometimes you do have to fight to win.

Going back to the US Civil War, the Army of the Potomac went through general after general. McClellan, Burnside, Hooker and Meade were all not prepared to engage in battle preferring to march and posture. The Confederate generals were not only successful but also employing Sun Tsu’s tactics of cutting off supply lines and knowing when to fight.

End Your Programming Routine: Getting back in the swing of things, much of this was written weeks ago. I may have lost a little bit of luster as a result, but I don’t want to write ten pages on something that is only three pages long, especially when my work is not really militarily oriented. I think that we can leave it where it is. Do the right tactical things and it will increase your likelihood of winning.

If you are reading along with me, by now you probably see why this book is held in high regard. There is so much wisdom packed in each chapter that we probably have heard but didn’t know the source. I am finding that myself.

While this chapter is titled Waging War, I found it to be more about logistics and overall objective rather than super secret tactics. Our politicians may be clever, but they are definitely not students of Sun Tsu. As a result, most recent conflicts have ground into failure (by my judgement).

Sun Tsu says that what motivates people to fight is anger, but what keeps them going is the spoils of war. We probably have heard ‘Gung Ho’ stories. In the days post 9/11 there were lots of them. Does Rusty Tillman ring a bell? Tillman was a young NFL safety that felt the call to his country immediately after 9/11. He gave up the money, the glamor as well as likely his childhood dream to be killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

My own grandfather told me that he volunteered for the Army in 1941 because he wanted to kill Germans. Granted most Americans were more mad at the Japanese, I suspect that his first generation French motivation had to be with the takeover of his family homeland. Anger is what drove enlistment.

Spoils are more complicated today than standard practice during Sun Tsu’s era. Even as late as Korea, GIs were sent home with their service weapons. Not just that, but they also brought home anything that was collected during the tour of duty. This was not just firearms but swords, jewelry, flags, uniform pieces and pretty much anything that could be carried. While I don’t think those things were a motivation to keep fighting, it was certainly a nod to military, victory tradition.

There are all kinds of variables here but a soldier wasn’t a soldier wasn’t a soldier. The lowest group were conscripts or militia members. They were called into service on an as needed basis. The leaders tended to be the rich folk of society. They certainly took advantage of war to enrich themselves. If there was a regular army, they tended to be a hodgepodge of things like criminals and misfits. In that case, being a soldier sure beat the alternatives.

The key of this chapter is not what motivates but if you will win. “No army will win a prolonged conflict.” This is the principle that proves our politicians have not read The Art of War. Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq sum up the last sixty years of US military action. These are all conflicts greater than ten years in duration and all losses in my opinion.

If you remember the mid-2000s, the question was asked, and asked and asked ‘What is the exit strategy’? Silence. We got into this war because of anger and we killed a lot of ’em. But good news for the Taliban, we left a lot of good weapons and equipment for them. So much so, they have donated some to Hamas to use in Gaza.

I go back to the self-realization in my podcast earlier this week. We act like we are surprised that militant Islam hates us. After we have spent the last sixty years meddling somewhere that we don’t belong or understand, we created generational hatred. We duped them into the petro dollar and keep getting involved in something that is not our concern every chance it warrants. We are the problem here, period. I digress from the Art of War.

If we evaluate the other side in what we call conflicts, it is pretty easy to see the perspective difference. It wasn’t a war to the Vietnamese (or take your pick), it was life. The fighting will end when I am dead or they are gone. Until such a time, this is how I live. There is no option to withdraw or leave. Long wars require long supply chains and tricks for morale since there is no opportunity to enrich the soldiers. Anger toward the enemy fades fast when you cant leave your post. It soon becomes anger at the controller rather than the ‘enemy’.

End Your Programming Routine: I love the idea of my country but I hate what it has become. Freedom takes maturity and that is in short supply when you can take at every opportunity. This is the reason we don’t have short wars. It doesn’t benefit the oligarchical pocketbook. That would be the ones that own the politicians and by proxy the politics.

And we are off. The Art of War is a short book. Mine is 77 pages and that is broken up into 13 chapters. Each week, it should be pretty easy to read the chapter and have some time to digest the meaning. I didn’t just read three pages however, my version has 162 pages of foreword, history and scene setting. Like Dante’s Italy, I had no idea about the history and politics of 500 BC (or the politically correct BCE) China. Truth be told, when any book starts adding a ton of foreign names, I kind of get lost.

It can be the Bible or a fantasy novel it is all the same, if the text is full of unfamiliar names I start to gloss over. So, I didn’t get a lot out of the pretext but a few things. Sun Tsu could be a pen name. He was likely an advisor to one of the Chinese emperors. This book is one of seven classic tactical texts albeit the best known.

The translator Ralph Sawyer relates the thirteen principles to several battles that Sun Tsu allegedly orchestrated. I suppose that this is an attempt to justify the validity of the principles based on the outcome of the battle. But, I am going to save you all of that anguish and we will assume that this is valuable wisdom that we can apply in today’s battles. Whatever those are.

This is my own principle. Never get involved in conflict with someone that has nothing to lose. What does that mean? It means that I have more important things to do than fight. I won’t use any names here but there is a person in my life that is chronically underemployed. This is also a very difficult person to get along with in the best of times. I suspect that the two things are related.

This person has been in the ‘system’ for many years and really nothing better to do, I don’t have the experience, desire or resources to get involved in a legal battle or other such things. I am not saying it is right but a better option is to pay some ransom than waste a bunch of time or resources fighting. The only loser in this scenario is me.

My philosophy is an homage to another Sun Tsu idea. Only fight battles that you are going to win. How do you know that you are going to win? It comes down to the initial estimation. There are five parameters that Sun Tsu says general need to know. They would be Tao, Heaven, Earth, generals and military organization. These are slightly abstract metrics to me anyway, especially when you read the definitions.

• Tao is the affinity of the soldiers to the ruler
• Heaven is the Yin/Yang
• Earth is the terrain
• Generals are generally the skill and ability
• Military organization includes things like troop strength and logistical support.

I don’t really want to get into analysis of each of these points but the thing that I notice is that this is really a holistic evaluation. Most people would probably only consider the last three elements in the evaluation and not necessarily the intangibles like ‘We have been on a real lucky streak, is this likely to continue?’ I think the thing to really take away from this is that an evaluation should be performed with a set of values that make sense for the situation.

Having never been a soldier, I cannot speak to that in particular. However, I have seen where weak initial estimations have come back to haunt time and time again. In the software business, I have seen underselling or underestimation of the scope and complexity cause virtual losses in battle. The poor generals lead troops that don’t have respect for the leaders. Logistical support is absent and the terrain is unknown. On top of that the Yin/Yang is not balanced because the plan is to make up the poor bidding with change orders or code in an attrition environment. Grind out the new workers who haven’t paid their dues.

How often do construction projects go double or triple the budget? Way too often because estimation is often more difficult than actually doing the work. Estimation is an interdisciplinary skill that requires knowledge of what needs to be done as well as a little bit of of poker. You have to know where the problem spots are likely and places where the project is likely to give and take.

Too often, this job is left to a polished smooth talker rather than a subject matter expert that has transitioned to a sales role. Also companies dig holes too deep by leveraging artificial advantages like off-shore workers (low rates) or currency conversions (converting a stronger dollar to weaker currencies for margins). This tricks might work to get out of a jamb but often put the short term profits over strategic partnerships or a happy workforce.

End Your Programming Routine: No, I have not confused business with war. Only one do I know anything about but I definitely concur that initial estimations are critical if you want to win the battle. Maybe Sun Tsu’s five parameters are adequate for war? What I can say is that parameters critical for success should be defined for the endeavor you are engaged in. They should be evaluated and refined with feedback. When this skill is mastered, then you will be prepared to determine whether or not to engage.