Comparing: Leveraging Time
The Art of War 5:5.1-4
This article continues our project explaining each line 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.
The lines discussed in this article start the Fifth and final Section of Chapter 5 of The Art of War. This chapter explains how strategic Momentum is created by the use of direct methods with surprises. We need strategic momentum when we find ourselves at a competitive disadvantage. This Fifth Section focuses on how momentum affects our organizations.
This stanza of this section emphasizes that the skill of inventing surprises is not something that we can initially teach new members to an organization. Organizational surprises can give everyone in a group the force of momentum, but we don’t want every individual in a group testing out their own surprises. Most surprises don’t work. Within an organization, too many surprises from too many people creates internal chaos.
What does Sun Tzu say about this?
(In the quotations below, we summarize each Chinese character as a single English word shown in < > brackets. A sentence from my English translation follows.)
<Make> <good> <battle> <is>
You want a successful battle.
We want our organizations to be seen as more innovative when compared with competing groups, but we don’t want to appear chaotic, going in several directions at once. Organizations are made up of individuals. Individuals in a group must be managed, but they must also manage themselves.
All organizations are created equal in the only resource that matters: the amount of time its individual members have in a day. Every other organizational strength is balanced by a corresponding weakness. Organizations with well-known positions find it difficult to adjust to change. Less established organizations are more nimble but struggle for recognition. Having more people is an advantage because they have more time, but managing them so they leverage their time is more difficult. Just as every individual has a limited amount of time, every organization has limited time resources based upon how well it uses its people.
All organizations need to use both standard, proven methods and innovation to create momentum, but what roles do the individuals within our organizations play in the process of creating momentum? This leads us into discussing a new dimension of strategic momentum and surprise.
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<Seek> <it> <from> <influence>
To do this, you must seek momentum.
<Influence> is the Chinese character we translate as “momentum.” Another way to think about the influence of momentum is as leverage. The way we get more out of our limited time is to leverage it. In physics, we reduce the effort it takes to lift a load by using a longer lever on the side of the fulcrum where we apply force. Our leverage determines how easily and quickly we lift the load. Leveraging time is similar. How much we can accomplish in the least amount of time is determined by our momentum, but the momentum of an organization is determined by how innovative its people can be within the confines of a group that must work together.
Most of the work within our organizations must be classified as “direct” or proven methods. We hear people talk about the value of “learning” organizations. The first learning that must take place, however, is the mastery of these direct methods. Strategically, Methods are narrowly defined as the processes that we use in working with others. Working together well is what every organization must master.
Other People
The ultimate leverage is leveraging the skills of those joining together in an organization. This requires teaching proven skills to those who are new to the group. Initially, however, we do not try to teach them the skills of creating surprises of their own.
<No> <demand> <from> <men>
Do not just demand a good fight from your people.
Within an organization, we all must first learn direct methods, the standard way of doing tasks. For any innovation to work, it must work in conjunction with what is already working and what others in the organization expect. People will flounder in any job if they don’t learn the basic skills of satisfying the expectations of others.
Repeating a task over and over again is how we master it. Only those who master a task are in a position to improve upon it. When we first start doing any job, we are incompetent doing it. Many of us blame the job instead of our own incompetence. Every task almost certainly can be improved but no task can be improved by someone who is incompetent at doing it.
Learning Surprise
This doesn’t mean that when we are in as organization we should not, over time, start finding ways to leverage our time and the time of our co-workers.
<Make> <able> <choose> <men> <and> <allow> <influence>
You must pick good people and then give them momentum.
At some point, the “learning” of “good” people changes. We gradually start attempting to change the task itself. When we try something new, the result is always a surprise. Will it work or won’t it? Most changes don’t. Surprises that work, no matter how small, are innovations. The accumulation of these innovations, mixed in with our regular, direct actions creates the momentum that leverages our time performing established duties within the organization. The improvements in what we do may be so small that we barely recognize them, but over time they accumulate and create surprisingly better results for the organization as a whole.
In other words, we choose people capable of improving the way they work over time. First, we demand competence in the routine tasks that make up their jobs. Then, we allow them the freedom to innovate. We should then encourage and publicly reward those who do innovate, leveraging everyone’s time. This is how we compete well against others, by changing the expectations within our organizations. People are not just doing their jobs. They are improving them.