Comparing: Front-Line Events
The Art of War 9:5.32-41: They don’t put their pots away or return to their tents.
This post continues our project explaining each stanza of Sun Tzu’s work. The English translation and Chinese transliterations are from my award-winning book, The Art of War and The Ancient Chinese Revealed.
The topic explained in this article are from the sixteen through nineteenth stanzas of Section Five of Chapter 9 of The Art of War. These stanzas follow the evolution of a bad situation in a similar pattern to those in the last set of stanzas.
In the lines below, we summarize each Chinese character with a single English word shown in < > brackets in their original order. This transliteration of the Chinese is followed by an English sentence translation.
The Front-Lines
<Hang> <crock> <no> <return> <this> <hut> <is>
They don’t put their pots away or return to their tents.<Poor> <pillage> <also>
They are desperate.
In the previous article, all the stanzas specifically mention the <enemy>. In this stanza, that pattern is broken. These lessons can not only help us learn about competitors and their condition, they can also help us learn something about our own organizations by the behavior of people on the “front lines.”
The second line is better translated broadly in strategy as the ground is yielding poor rewards. Every established position must pay for itself. Positions that are not paying for themselves need to be abandoned. The people on the front lines often see this before those higher in the chain of command do.
We often call Sun Tzu’s methods a “front-line” strategy because they focus on how we should respond to events outside of our control. They are not “planning” but adaptive. The front-lines of our organizations are where these events are first encountered. It may take days, weeks, or years for those events to be seen or felt by upper management. Often, they are felt so late that it is impossible to recover.
External social media systems, unlike internal management systems, give us access to what people on the front-lines are seeing, not only in our organizations but in those with who we deal.
The Behavior of Individuals
<Earnest> <earnest> <agreeable> <agreeable>
Enemy troops appear sincere and agreeable.<Slow> <give> <men> <speak> <is>
But their men are slow to speak to each other.<Lose> <crowd> <also>
They are no longer united.
Again, although the translation mentions the “enemy,” the original Chinese does not. These lessons apply to conditions within our organizations as well as those in outside organizations, ally or enemy.
People hide what they are really feeling. They want to appear agreeable. This is especially true for the people on the front-lines. Buyers want to leaven salespeople with the impressions they will buy, not now, but sometime. Sellers want to give buyers the impression that they can meet their demands at a price they can afford. Some organizations and cultures are especially agreeable, never quite shutting down conversation. This happy talk is not exactly lying, but we cannot let ourselves be misled.
The general rule is not to trust in how agreeable people appear. Instead, trust in what they are willing to do, what they are willing to commit to doing, ideally in writing, with prices and deadlines. Everything else is just happy talk. The slower people are in continuing the conversation, the less likely they are to ever agree. The tactic is simply to let the conversation die rather than to every say, “no.”
While we expect a certain amount of “happy talk” between organizations that are trying to make deals with each other, this “happy talk” can also take place within organizations, between different part of the organization and between the lower levels and higher ones. This “happy talk,” again, doesn’t depend upon lying as much as it does on not contradicting the overly optimistic expectations of others.
When communication breaks down in this way within an organization, it usually leads to disaster. The problem is the the different parts of the organization no longer share the same mission. In Sun Tzu’s system, unity is strength. This “happy talk” within the organization is often the first sign of an organization’s waning strength.
The Use of Incentives and Disincentives
Perhaps the most common sign of the waning strength of an organization is the increased use of incentives.
<Number> <reward> <is>
Your enemy offers too many incentives to his men.<Distressed> <also>
He is in trouble.
Incentives can take a hundred different forms, from putting products on sale or raising commissions for salespeople. When an organization that never advertised starts advertising, it means their established position is eroding. Raising prices is a sign of market strength. Lowering prices is a sign of market weakness.
Too many people do not understand that even action also sends a message. Everything we do has a direct effect, but it also has secondary effects as others react to the messages we are sending. The secondary effects are often the opposite of what we desired by the direct action. Many organizations that are running short of cash, give people incentives to buy now!” Many people react to this by becoming afraid to buy at all, or, delaying buying in hopes prices will fall further. A “special” sale that becomes a regular, predictable sale can have the effect of delaying buying rather than increasing it.
The question is always what is “too much.” Things that work initially, such as a sale on a certain holiday, can turn into losers when they become predictable. This is not to say that regular sales cannot be effective. The problems arise when we go to them too often out of desperation.
The same is true when we try to get more control by punishing people.
<Number> <penalize> <is>
Your enemy gives out too many punishments.<Tired> <also>
His men are weary.
Punishments are not used within free marketplaces, but they are used within organizations. Pay cuts within an organization never send a good message. However, some types of pay cuts, such as cutting down on the percentage of commission, take place only during good times, when sales are increasing with less and less sales effort.
Punishments, are, of course the most common within nation-states. When nations start issuing more and more laws, it is a clear sign that they are losing control. This is especially true of increasing taxes. Places that keep having to raise taxes are often visibly failing. More laws, often equal more crime, as more join the ranks of the lawless.
As always, the issue is what is “too much.” People can usually see very clearly when such actions are being undertaken out of fear or confidence.