Comparison 17: Minimizing
Before we look at how we compare minimizing our efforts and other costs, let us look at our progress through Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. The book focuses on making better strategic decisions. Decisions are made comparing alternatives. Comparison creates a competition between those alternatives. The goal of strategy is to position ourselves so others would rather support us than oppose us. The method of strategy is to make our choices from the point of view of how others see us in comparison.
What is Compared?
What we compare is not people, but our strategic positions. Positions are defined and compared in five dimensions. Those dimensions go back to how our minds must see the world in order to survive.
The concept of positioning arose from our beginnings as hunter/gatherers. The first dimension is that of mission, comparing goals. Even our most primitive ancestors had to worry about the goals of the other men and animals around them. They also had to think about when those around them were moving based on the changes of climate. And of course, they had to know where they were on the ground in relationship to everything else. They had to see others as having command of their own lives, but making their decisions based on their individual characters, not all people were friendly, not all big cats were aggressive. Our ancestors also had to recognize the skills of others in order to deal with them. Wild dogs couldn’t climb, but cats could. They especially had to recognize the skill of the people with whom they lived in order to work with them. These five categories—mission, climate, ground, command, and skills—are how we naturally compare people and other forms of competition.
We improve our positions in the minds of others though the repeated process of advancing. That process starts with how well we listen, but, in listening, we must worry about others deceiving us and deceiving ourselves. The quality of our aiming is decided by how well we compare our options to avoid mistakes and see opportunities. When we move, we are compared on our self-control, avoiding risks, and moving at the right speed. When our moves successfully improves our positions, rewards come from making claims. In the end, the basis of everyone’s comparisons us is our skills in advancing.
This idea of managing our skills leads us to the need for minimizing our costs, our risks, our efforts, the size of our advances and so on.
Minimizing
First, we ask ourselves: what is a good use of our limited resources?
<Good> <use> <war> <is>,
The Art of War, Chapter 2, Section 2, Line 3
A more general way of asking this is, what is the best use of competition? We use competition only for one reason: to reach our goals, to serve our mission. This means that we must focus on seeking it rewards. We avoid being compared for other reasons, such as gratifying our egos. Competition is not about how we feel about ourselves. We must win more rewards than the cost of winning better positions. If we do not use competition correctly, the competitive environment will use us.
<Military> <service> <no> <again> <record>,
The Art of War, Chapter 2, Section 2, Line 4
Past competitive investments should not come into our calculations. These costs are “sunk costs” in our modern terms of accounting. We do not grow our efforts in an attempt to cover those losses. Those past investments are gone. We must minimize our desire to prove that they were not wasted.
We must consider every competitive effort from now on without looking back. We carry forward only what we learn from our mistakes. Our learning minimizes the chances of those mistakes being repeated. Our mistakes are also part of our competitive position. We may not figure them into our future calculation, but others remember them, but only until our next success, no matter how small.
<Provisions> <no> <three> <carry>,
The Art of War, Chapter 2, Section 2, Line 5
The “three” here has many dimensions of meaning. It refers to the third skill in advancing a position, moving. It also refers to a third of our efforts being tied up in transporting those resources The Chinese hexagram “three” used in the I-Ching means a “difficult or delayed beginning.” Gathering resources takes time and delays our start. Carrying resources slows us down. We limit the resources we usevinto each competitive move to avoid these problems.
Less is More
The point is that by minimizing we can do more: get more small wins, move faster, survive more failures.
More importantly, by minimizing what is used in competition, we free up our resources from something more certainly productive:
<Choose> <use> <to> <nation>,
The Art of War, Chapter 2, Section 2, Line 6
Sun Tzu contrasts the “army” or competitive part of our lives or an organization’s divisions with its productive part, “the nation.” The best use of resources is always to increase our productivity if we can. All resources consumed in competitive efforts—sales, marketing, advertising, etc.—must be taken from our productive efforts. This means we are creating less value for our supporters. The result is that they reward us less. Our rewards are never what we want to minimize.
Our top priority is defending our current position with those who support us. I use the term “support” both in the sense of allying them with us and providing the resources we need to continue our efforts.
If we do not take our resources from the productive parts of our lives or organizations, were do we get them?
<Source> <provisions> <from> <enemy>,
The Art of War, Chapter 2, Section 2, Line 7
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