Comparing: Use of New Positions

The Art of War 4.1

(Note: earlier version of this article showed misnumbered references to The Art of War. This continues my current project of revisting the source and my translation of the classic work on strategy.)

As we move into Chapter Four of The Art of War, we begin to discuss how to use competitive positions. In the first stanza of this chapter, the topic is how to use a new position. While every position is a path, a new extension of our past, a “new” position is one where we move into a new competitive arena where we haven’t established ourselves.

Many young people, especially those coming out of college, have overblown expectations about their initial positions in the job market and how much respect and responsibility they deserve. When we were running our software company, we stopped hiring people right out of college. We preferred college drop-outs or those who had worked in real jobs in the marketplace. We got tired of reeducating people out of the bad habits they had picked up in college. This problem seems only to have grown worse over time. School has become a kind of extended womb designed to protect people from the rigors and realities of competition rather than educating them on who to prosper in it.

How should we think about our place in a new area? How should we see others in that competitive space? How should we treat them? The answers Sun Tzu gives us are unexpected and counterintuitive. These ideas are so unexpected that English translations of his work, including my own, misinterpret Sun Tzu’s meaning. The problem is focusing on our traditional idea of what “enemies” are.