Comparing: Breaking Rules

The Art of War 8:.8-1 Make war without a standard approach.

This post continues our project explaining each stanza of Sun Tzu’s work. The English and Chinese are from my award-winning translation, The Art of War and The Ancient Chinese Revealed. Start here for the book’s opening lines.

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This article focuses on ignoring any rules for competition. It examines the two stanzas (last seven lines) of Section Eight of Chapter 6 of The Art of War. The general topic of Chapter Six is emptiness and fullness and how weakness and strength flow from them. In this section of this chapter, Sun Tzu starts by providing a valuable analogy to help us think about competitive situations: the behavior of water. Positions are fluid not solid, just like they are not a specific point, but a path. We succeed in competition by modeling our strategic decisions after what we see water doing naturally.

These two stanzas continue that discussion.

• In the section below, we summarize each Chinese character with a single English word shown in < > brackets.

<Make> <war> <without> <rule> <influence>
Make war without a standard approach.

The old military adage is the generals are always refighting the last war instead of the current one. We can also say that armies, especially defensive ones, are built to fight the last war, not the current one. We are always a step behind ourselves in our competitive thinking. <Influence> is the Chinese character translated as momentum. Creating momentum requires surprise. If surprise follows rules, it is not surprising.

Of course, strategy offers rules for creating surprise, (see this article), but those rules do not determine what the surprises will be because the recipe’s ingredients are always the current situation. Sun Tzu teaches that our response must always be tailored to current and even future positions. As he said in the previous stanza, the ground directs the flow of water. As the ground changes, we must adapt to it.

<Water> <without> <rule> <form>
Water has no consistent shape.

<Form> is the character translated as competitive positions. Our past experiences shape our thinking about competitive positions. We learn from the past what works, but this knowledge is limited. We learn from the past what worked in the past. Because everyone in a competitive battle thins and has a memory, we are not the only ones who learn. The whole competitive arena is learning with us. Others develop expectations about what we will do. Part of our strategic job is to surprise those expectations. Nothing is more boring than an old-trick pony.

There are many rules governing strategic responses, but they are all adaptations to specific situations. If people expect anything from us, it might be surprise. But we should frustrate even that expectation, mixing in moves that are obvious and, seemingly inevitable with our unconventional moves.

Can> <follow> <enemy> <transform> <change> <and> <yet> <take> <victory>
If you follow the enemy’s shifts and changes, you can always find a way to win.

Those with whom we are competing adapt to what we have done in the past. We are like chest masters constantly finding counters to each others winning moves. Those with whom we are competing change, either because they adapt to us or because new players enter the fray.

Because of this, the moves we have made in the past will no longer work or, at least, no longer work in the same way. We follow the changes that others make, in the sense of studying them, adapting to them, and even copying them.

<Call> <it> <spirit>
We call this shadowing.

This is a form of the “empty self” that we discussed earlier in a series of articles about introducing, establishing, advancing, and defending ourselves in a new competitive arena. Even after we have established a position in that position and must use that position as the basis for our future moves, that position should dictate what we do next. The actions of others should guide what we do.

Remember: only others can create the new openings that are opportunities for us to advance.

<Make> <five> <march> <without> <rule> <victory>
Fight five different campaigns without a firm rule for victory.

Every time we advance our position, we can do it in a different ways. The ”five” here refers to the five dimensions that make up our positions. We can advance to improve our Mission, take advantages of changes in Climate, into new Ground, changing Command structure, or by adopting new Methods. These are all different ways to win.

We can advance our positions in any of these dimensions. We have a tendency to look at our move only from the perspective of winning new territory. Indeed, this is the way we talk about moving our positions most commonly in these articles. This, however, is only a convenient illustration of how we advance. We do not want to forget all the other dimensions in which we can grow more capable.

<Four> <seasons> <without> <rule> <position>
Use all four seasons without a consistent position.

Climate offers predictable cycles of change in conditions. The architype for this is the four seasons, but there are many such cycles in nature including the boom and bust cycle of business and romantic relationships.

We have to guard against falling into patterns that are as predictable as the seasons. We want of ten years of experience, not one year of experience repeated ten times. The more predictable we are, the less effective we are.

<Day> <has> <brief> <length>
Each day passes quickly.

While we may not notice all the small changes that take place in a single day, those changes mount over time. While some momentous event may seem to happen in a day, that potential for that change has built over time, day by day until the dam bursts. As Hemingway wrote in The Sun Also Rises when a man describes going bankrupt explains how it happened, thing happen, “Gradually, then suddenly.” We look for these changes each day because they are always happening, whether we notice them or not. We must look for daily trends so that we are not surprised when that trend reaches a tipping point and some aspect of the future is revealed.

Each drip of water is small, but over time, it can wear away mountains.

<Month> <has> <death> <birth>
A month can decide your failure or success.

Over time, new ingredients are added to the competitive stew and old ones are removed. We see this, as we get older, more clearly in our personal lives with the birth and death of people. In our social lives, we see it with the rise and fall of different individuals. A new age can dawn in a month.

Our ability to adapt to these big shifts determine our future success or failure.