Comparison: A Consensus View
Art of War 7:4.6-11 You must master gongs, drums, banners, and flags.
This post continues our project explaining each stanza 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.
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The stanza discussed here is the second one in Section Four of Chapter 7 of The Art of War. The general topic of this chapter is Armed Conflict and avoiding its costs. The earlier sections of this chapter were about deception, that is controlling the perceptions of others in order to avoid conflict. This section moves the discussion to ways to amplify our message so that it is heard and seen. These methods of leveraging sound and sight are discussed in the previous article. This stanza goes onto describe how we can help others best hear and see the claims that establish our positions.
In the short English translation, we apply this stanza to communicating with those who follow us, that is, our “army.” However, these ideas have a much broader application. We can use the group psychology of this stanza to improve our positions in the minds of others who are not yet our supporters. Those who understand our messages the most clearly are those who are most likely to spread it, but we want everyone to hear us more clearly.
Even when we talk to individuals, our positions depend upon the preferences of groups. What matters is how the group positions us in their minds. People can have and promote their own unique views on individuals, but there is a strong tendency to join our thinking to a group consensus. Individuals always make the key decisions, but this is often muddied by the fact that individual decisions are heavily influenced by their group’s general shared viewpoint.
This stanza starts off by summarizing the previous message about amplifying what we say and do.
In the quoted sections below, we summarize each Chinese character with a single English word shown in < > brackets.
<Husband> <metal> <drum> <banner> <flags> <is>
You must master gongs, drums, banners, and flags.
Positioning is all about establishing ourselves in the minds of others. Sun Tzu tells us that we must repeat our message like a drum beat in order to have it stick. His suggestion of a “metal drum” also indicates a tune as well as a beat. Promotional jingles stick in people’s minds. They have a quality that Sun Tzu describes elsewhere as “stickiness.” Another form of stickiness is the use of strong images that are memorable. In English, we describe highlighting an item as “flagging” it because of the way flags call attention to a position. Today, we say that meme’s go viral, but this is because they are sticky and are flagged by others.
Communication is about enticing the senses in ways to make our message unforgettable. We should think about this every time we describe what we do or have done in our position when we are claiming credit. Doing good things isn’t enough. Others must remember what we have done.
<Place> <by> <means> <of> <one> <man> <’s> <ear> <eye> <also>
Place people as a single unit where they can all see and hear.
The theme here is unity. In Sun Tzu’s system, unity is strength. What we say repeatedly and the consistency of our actions must demonstrate a united and uniting message. Many of us think that we must say a large number of good things about our position and accomplishments to get people’s attention. But it works much better when we repeat a single, simple message that encapsulates all the we have done, are doing, and will do. We can use a list of accomplishments, but they must simply be evidence supporting a single claim. A list of accomplishments is much more potent when it has a single uniting theme, but most people overlook the power of a uniting vision that explains actions. Creating this uniting theme is the hardest and most valuable part of communicating our value to others.
<Man> <both> <concentrate> <one>
You must unite them as one.
Our messages must bring people together. This is easier if they are targeted at a very specific group. We don’t listen unless we feel a message is aimed at us. To bring people together, we must start with their shared needs and values. In psychology, convergence theory holds that unified groups form from people of similar dispositions, but Sun Tzu teaches that this convergence is less a matter of personality than it is of a shared mission, the driving force that motivates people to move in a specific direction. Different people move in the same direction when they share a similar mission.
<Then> <brave> <is> <not> <get> <alone> <advance>
Then the brave cannot advance alone.<Cowardly> <is> <not> <get> <alone> <retreat>
The fearful cannot withdraw alone.
We act differently when we see ourselves as part of a group than we do when we act alone. Those who are courageous enough to try something new in their own lives are not common, but they also the type of people who will step up to act as leaders of a group. Those who are more timid prefer to wait when they are acting on their own, but they will follow instantly when they are acting as part of a group. Civil disobedience, rock concerts, and religious revivals all define groups of people who do things they might not usually do but choose to do when they are part of a group.
An individual in a group behaves just as he or she would behave if alone, only they act more strongly. Convergence theory holds that crowds form from people of similar mindsets, whose actions are then reinforced and intensified by the crowd.
<Here> <use> <crowd> <’s> <method> <also>
You must force them to act as a group.
This is all a matter of using what we call today crowd psychology. Groups can be a pack and a herd, which are active groups, or they can be audiences or spectators, which are passive groups. Our goal is to transform passive audiences into active packs, with leaders and followers. Often, we can create more desire in a pack by engaging individuals into a contest for limited resources.