Comparing Focus: The Big Picture

The Art of War 3:3:5

The fifth stanza of the third section of chapter three of The Art of War connects the earlier lesson in this chapter to the big picture of strategic positioning. The challenge of unity and focus is getting our priorities straight. When we all our resources on one aspect of the situation, we tend to lose track of the other aspects, which are just as important.. Focus can easily become tunnel vision.

This chapter has discussed a lot of different areas. We need to consider them all. The purpose of this stanza is to put these areas in a clear order of consideration.

You must know five things to win:
The Art of War 3:3:5.1

When Sun Tzu lists five things in any context, we can almost always connect them back to the five factors that define competitive positions. Very often, he shows the big five in the original hierarchy from chapter one: mission, climate, ground, command, and methods. However, in Chinese science and philosophy, there are many other arrangements for organizing these big five elements (see my book The Amazing Secrets of Sun Tzu's The Art of War).

Here, they are ordered differently in a specific way regarding unity and focus.

Time Focus

The lessons in this chapter are all about instantly understanding a specific situation to make a time-sensitive decision.

Victory comes from knowing when to attack and when to avoid battle.
The Art of War 3:3.5.2

Since this involves time, it focuses on the problem of climate, the time component of all strategic position. This was the topic of the earlier article on time focus. While mission is the most important element in evaluating positions in general, when we are talking about unity and focus to advance our positions, choosing the right time is the most important element.

Why?

Because when we make a strategic move, we must take advantage of opportunities. We advance our positions when a window of opportunity is open. We cannot move forward after such a window closes. Winning does not depend solely upon our actions, but the reactions of others. These depend on the larger changes affecting them. All moves are stimulated by change and our ability to adapt to it.

We use our resources to move forward when an opportunity opens up. We avoid moves and comparisons to rivals when positions are stable.

Relative Size Focus

Victory comes from correctly using both large and small forces.
The Art of War 3:3.5.3

The second most important aspect of unity and focus is using the right methods for the situation. This topic was covered earlier in this chapter in the section discussing on the seven method we use depending upon the relative size of our forces. These methods are the toolbox we have to choose from in a given situation. Choosing the right methods becomes more important when deciding how to move forward.

This comparison can only be made at the time when we are meeting our rivals, those with whom we are being compared. These specific comparisons determines our choice of methods. We can succeed with relatively large forces or relatively small forces, but only if we use methods most appropriate the the type of matchup we face.

Competitive Strength

Unity and focus are our source of competitive strength (see this article). Both of the components come from having a shared values and goals (see this article). This is the topic of the next line.

Victory comes from everyone sharing the same goals.
The Art of War 3:3.5.4

This refers to the strategic element of “mission,” the aspect of our positions that give us direction and goals. Unity, the topic of the first stanza of this chapter, comes from allies working to make progress on similar goals.

This is the type of a self-referencing concept in Sun Tzu’s hyperbranching strategy in which cause and effect often switch back and forth. A shared Mission is the source of unity, which enables focus. But focusing on finding shared goals is what makes a shared mission possible. And all of these are dependent on the situation, the change that creates an opportunity and our using methods appropriate to the situation. Allies are only important when we need to use “large force” methods.