This article is part of a project explaining the deeper meaning of Sun Tzu’s classic work on strategy. In it, we look at the original text, one small section after another, going through the whole book. See this article for the book’s opening lines.
The nine lines explained here are from the middle of the second section of Chapter 5. This chapter is about the methods for using innovation and creating momentum. Momentum depends on two types of moves, direct action and surprise. We use direct action or proven processes first, to set people’s expectations. Then we use surprise to upset those expectations, get people to notice us, and to disrupt the plans of others. An infinite number of opportunities for surprise are created by the constant change in our environment.
We introduced the five natural elements of ancient Chinese science in the previous article: fire, water, wood, metal, and earth. Those elements provided the ancient Chinese with a framework around which all the other physical characteristics of their world could be organized. They are similar to but different from the five elements of ancient Greece, earth, water, air, fire, and aether (quintessence).
In this article, we compare the strategic connection between those five elements and what we hear, see, and sense about our environment. These elements of sound, sight, and imagination are compared to fashion our surprises. They are crude simplifications of our world, but it is their simplicity that allows us to understand and use them productively.
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The three stanzas here repeat the theme of using the five-element model strategically analyze what can be heard, seen, and tasted. Surprising innovations arise from mixing these five element. This understanding of the elements is like our modern view: everything we see is a compound made from one of the 118 chemical elements of the periodic table. New chemical compounds with new properties are created by finding new ways to combine these elements. We crate innovative strategies by combining the five strategic elements.
Strategic Listening
We show these stanza’s in English because little is lost in translation. These stanzas are somewhat poetic in both Chinese and English.
There are only five notes in the scale.
Yet you can always rearrange them.
You can never hear every song of victory.
Our musical scale today is based on eight major notes, but the notes of the ancient Chinese major scale had only five notes, matching their five elements. They are called gōng 宫, shāng 商, jué 角, zhǐ 徵 and yǔ 羽. This doesn’t come from my deep knowledge of Chinese culture, but from a quick search on Duck, Duck, Go.
Listening is the first strategic skill, before aiming and moving. We must not only listen but we must rearrange what we hear to find what is most surprising in what people are saying. The analogy here is that musical notes range from low to high. The low, bass notes tend to be held longer and change less than the higher ones. Bass lines are repetitive. Higher notes tend to be less repetitive and, in the melody, provide the key differences between tunes.
We use this idea by comparing which elements, at any given time, are changing the most frequently, creating more possibilities for innovation. Generally, the least changing are our long-term missions or goals. Ground is the next bass note because it is very stable, changing slowly. Command also tends to be stable, but leaders do change as needed. Methods should change more frequently. Strategically, our methods carry the burden of our competitive melody. Climate is always changing. More change equals more potential for surprise.
Strategic Seeing
There are only five basic colors.
Yet you can always mix them.
You can never see all the shades of victory.
The next area of strategic awareness is what we see. What we see compares what others are doing. We can then compare what we hear to test what people say against what they do. Surprises from others are not usually heard about before they are seen, and we want to see them first.
We ourselves use surprise in order to get people to pay attention to us. Some of Sun Tzu’s five elements are more visible and attention getting than others. We can compare the strategic elements of our position by how surprising a change in any of them would be.
The ground we hold, our market position or relationship status, are what people see most. A change in Ground is very attention getting. The next most attention getting is our Command leadership. We are all people, interested in other people. Then we have our Missions. Changes in mission tend to be more subtle and less attention getting. They are often written off as a mere “mission statement,” annempty marketing message. Finally we have Methods, which should be as secret as possible and, therefore, less attention getting until their results take another form, such as a change in Ground.
Strategic Taste
There are only five flavors.
Yet you can always blend them.
You can never taste all the flavors of victory.
The five flavors for the ancients and us today are savory, sweet, bitter, sour, or salty. Any strategic element can be sweet or bitter or a mixture. What creates surprise is when we change a sour situation into a sweet one.
More broadly understood, flavor is “taste” in the sense of the current fashion. There are trends in fashion. Many ideas of good taste are outdated over time. Restaurants whose food was once fashionable can soon seem outdated. Does the food taste worse? No, except in the sense that it tastes the same. Fashion craves novelty. We must keep in touch with changing tastes in order to understand what creates an impact by being unexpected.
Taste differs among different groups and individuals. We can cater to general trends in taste or try to identify the “trend-setters” who lead. In many situations, however, we must cater to individual tastes. This is certainly the case in romantic strategy, and in the many situations with one key decision-maker or judge.
Surprising Comparisons
Competition is a comparison. The more subjective the comparison, the more it depends on taste. The more objective the comparison, the more it depends on sight. What we say to create surprises must strike a balance between the two, stimulating the hunger of others and providing them something novel that they haven’t seen before.