Comparison: A Small Focus

The Art of War 3:3:1-11

According to Sun Tzu, competitive strength is made of two components, unity and focus. This chapter begins by discussing unity. In this section, we move on to focus, but , surprisingly, Sun Tzu describes focus as an aspect of unity. Focus forces unity. Coming together in unity creates focus.

Focus means putting more effort and resources into a specific time, place, and form of competition than our rivals. By this focusing on smaller and smaller areas, we unite our organizations. A common strategic mistake is spreading ourselves too thin, attempting to do too much with too little. Focus is the opposite. It means doing less and less with more and more. Focus gives us strategic superiority at the time and place we desire.

A Different Viewpoint

Today’s text is from the beginning of section three of chapter three of The Art of War. My standard English version stays fairly close to many other translations, but today we will look at a different side of this verse. In this article, we will go through each line and explore its deeper and more practical meaning in modern competition.

Make good use of war.
The Art of War, 3:3:1

The “make good use of war” line is a common one in the The Art of War. It means to make good use of competition, that is, the psychological comparison that we all make deciding who to support, who to ignore, and who to oppose.

Make the enemy’s troops surrender.
The Art of War, 3:3:2

This isn’t a translation as much as an easier-to-understand interpretation. The Chinese says:

<Humiliate> <people> <’s> <war>

In other words, embarrass others when they are compared to us. How do we do this? The hard way is to find areas of competition where we can excel to the degree that others don’t even want to challenge us. The easy way is unexpected but it works: we find areas in which others are embarrassed to promote as there strength. These are areas that others overlook. Their embarrassment after the fact comes from overlooking something that can clearly be seen as an opportunity in hindsight (see the first paragraph of last week’s article). At one time carmakers would have been embarrassed to bring out an electric car. Then after the Prius, they brought out economy competitors. Then along came Tesla who made EVs into sexy muscle cars. At each step, major car manufacturers lost money in these competitions, which is really embarrassing.

How do we compete in areas that allow us to embarrass others? Sun Tzu tells us:

You can do this fighting only minor battles.
The Art of War, 3:3:3

A “battle” is the point at which two competitors, two alternatives, are compared. This is a decision point where a choice must be made. There is always a strategic decision about which battle we choose. Much of good strategy is avoiding the wrong points of comparison and choosing the right ones.

Small Makes a Big Difference