Comparing: Supporting Terrain

The Art of War 9:24-32: You cannot attack from some positions easily.

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.

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This article discusses the fourth stanza of the first section of Chapter 10 of The Art of War. This chapter’s general topic is the six types of terrain on which we compete. This stanza focuses on the third type: supporting ground. Its focus is on the advantages, disadvantages, and defense of such terrain.

What Sun Tzu calls the “danger” of a terrain is how difficult it makes our next advance. Dangers are how the terrain affects advancing from a position. The two extremes of dangerous ground are “sticky” and “slippery.” Supporting terrain is another name for “slippery” positions, those that we cannot leave without putting ourselves on a slippery slope.

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When we think about a competitive landscape, we can visualize it as a terrain of better or worse positions where the better positions are higher and the worse ones are lower. Positions are associated with each other, some sloping uphill to better positions and others downhill to worse ones. We seek to move higher in this terrain where we earn better rewards and get closer to our goals. However, among these slopes, there are places where we find peaks and valleys. In terms of rewards, peaks generate the best rewards while valleys produce the worst.

Supporting

The goal of strategy is to move from position to position as stepping stones to improve our competitive strength. However, slippery positions that a much better than all surrounding opportunities. While all positions decay over time, these positions tend to last longer because they are higher, decaying slowly.

<I> <exit> <and> <yet> <no> <advantage>
You cannot leave some positions without losing an advantage.

This is the reverse of the line that began our discussion of unobstructed terrain ( see this article( and about entangling terrain (see this article). This terrain is the opposite of entangling . It is known as supporting. Entangling is sticky terrain, the maximum of danger, while supporting terrain is slippery, the minimum of danger. We cannot move away from these supporting positions because every place around them is on a downslope.

<Mutually> <exit> <and> <yet> <no> <advantage>
If the enemy leaves this ground, he also loses an advantage.

When we hold these types of positions we should not relinquish them, and, if our opponents hold these positions, they should not relinquish them either. While we cannot leave entangling ground unless certain of success because we cannot return, we should not leave supporting ground because to do so, we will be giving up our advantage. However, if we do make this mistake, we should immediately return to these positions. These positions take time to fade from the minds of our supporters so returning is usually easy.

<Say> <support>
We call these supporting field positions.

This terrain is supporting in the sense that it lifts us above all the surrounding areas, giving us a superior position to all our potential competitors in our local neighborhood. These positions are also known as “peak positions” because to leave them we must go downhill, accepting positions that are not nearly as good.

Many of us work hard to discover peak positions in our competitive arenas, but when we find them, we don’t necessarily recognize them. We only realize it when we explore the surrounding territory and examine surrounding competitive positions and find them all less desirable than our current places.

<Support> <form> <is>
These positions strengthen you.

Supporting positions offer the best rewards. These rewards allow us to build up our defensive resources. We need these resources because other competitors will be coming after our positions. This will be very difficult for them. Those in peak positions always have an advantage. Opposition that has to fight uphill is always at a disadvantage.

<Enemy> <although> <advantage> <I>
The enemy may try to entice you away.

The only way we can lose these positions is to be lured away from them. The most famous example of this was in the soft drink industry. Coke held the peak position in soft drinks for decade. Pepsi was the competitor fighting uphill against Coke. Pepsi had a worse position, but they were superior in flavor, at least in taste tests. When Pepsi started their “taste test” ad campaign, Coke’s position as the leading seller was not threatened, but Coke wanted to compete on the new ground that Pepsi had established. To this end, Coke replaced their traditional formula with a new one called “New Coke.” This move hurt Coke much more than the Pepsi campaign had. Within six months, Coke brought back the original formula as Coke Classic. The product was accepted back into its former peak position. New Coke faded away.

<I> <without> <exit> <also>
Still, hold your position.

When we are in a peak position, the best strategy is to hold onto it. These positions exist in people’s minds, so those in peak positions must always maintain that identity in the minds of their supporters. This is why products such as Windows, iPhone, and so on just add numbers to their new model rather than renaming them. New names are reserved for products that expand on their peak positions.

<Pull> <and> <yet> <remove> <it>
You must entice the enemy to leave.

When we have a competitor in a peak position, we can only entice them to leave it. We must promote our products to make their existing positions seem to be a disadvantage. Pepsi’s strategy was not a bad one: find a new basis for competitive comparison.

<Command> <enemy> <half> <exit> <but> <strike> <it>
You then strike him as he is leaving.

Whenever opponents make any move, we must characterize their moves as abandoning their supporting position and their current supporters. Those in supporting position can and will explore new areas. When they abandon those explorations, we can characterize it as a tendency to abandon customers in general. Our goal is to create doubt about their dedication to their supporting position.

<Advantage>
These field positions offer an advantage.

Supporting positions are always an advantage. Even if we make the mistake of moving away from them, they will accept us back if we recognize our error quickly, before others can take our place.