Comparisons: 'Battle' Views
In night battles, you must use numerous fires and drums.
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.
The stanza discussed here is the last one in Section Four of Chapter 7 of The Art of War. The general topic of this chapter is Armed Conflict. The previous stanza in this section was about how we utilize communication to create a focused view of our positions. This stanza is about maintaining this unified view during “battle.” A “battle” is a specific point in time when we are purposely compared to others.
Sun Tzu doesn’t use the Chinese character for “battle” to mean conflict. It more generally means a “meeting” where alternatives are brought together. Our goal at these meetings is to control the perceptions of others in order to enable decisions and avoid conflict. Militarily, the goal is to resolve a situation without fighting, but the principle goes beyond military battles to the comparisons that happen in our daily lives.
We want our group members, our supporters, our opponents, and those making decisions about us to understand our positions at all times. Half of our competitive positions doesn’t depend upon us or our opponents, but upon the larger environment in which we all operate. The environment controls us. All we can do is adapt to it. Most changes in the environment are beyond anyone’s control. Since battles take place at a specific point in time, we must adapt to environmental conditions at that point. One of the most important conditions is the visibility in that environment by which alternatives are compared.
Night Battles
This stanza starts with situations with a minimum of visibility,
In the section below, we summarize each Chinese character with a single English word shown in < > brackets. It is followed by an English sentence translation.
<Make> <night> <battle> <many> <fires> <drum>
In night battles, you must use numerous fires and drums.
Sun Tzu starts with night because it is the worst time for visibility. More generally, <night> refers to any situation where there are problems seeing people’s positions. The specific topic here is “battles,” which describes situations where we are being compared to other competitors. Most positions may be unclear but we want ours strengths to be more clearly seen than the alternatives.
In these <night> comparisons, the differences between us and our competitors are hard to see. In modern business markets, it is always difficult to get brand visibility in the public, but the problem here is not general name recognition. If we are already in a battle, we have gotten enough attention so that we are being consider along with other alternatives. The question is: what aspects of our position do we emphasize to do the best we can in low-visibility comparisons?
Practical Strategy is a reader-supported publication. Become a free subscriber. Paid subscription start at only $5.
Light from Fire
Visibility requires some type of “light.” In Sun Tzu’s era, the only way people had of producing light was fire. “Fire” is one of the five natural elements in Chinese science and philosophy. These natural elements are the basis for Sun Tzu’s five dimensions of strategic positions. The natural element of Fire is equated with the strategic element of Methods. Both of them create new Ground. The natural element Fire creates Ground in the form of ash. The strategic element Methods creates new ground in the sense of new territories. For example, the new Methods of computer communications opened up the new territory of the Internet. Reusable rockets will open up new territories of outer space. The natural element of Fire controls Metal by melting it. The strategic element of Methods controls Command, the strategic equivalent of Metal, by determining what skills our organizations can utilize.
In conditions of low natural visibility, we must focus the comparison on our Methods to illuminate what we are doing and can do. The strategic elements of Ground, Climate, Command, and Mission must take a back seat because those aspects of a position are less visible. We must emphasize our unique Methods for solving problems. Our skills shine as solutions to the problems of others, and their own needs are all they care about. We emphasize our <many> skills by offering them as solutions to different problems that they have.
Daytime Comparisons
The problem of communicating in low visibility situations is how we are seen. What people hear about us is not only still important but even more important in low-visibility situations This is why <drums> are mentioned in the first line. Listening is the first step in understanding competitive positions because what we hear from others has the biggest impact of our judgments about others.
Listening is so important that the advice in this verse is nearly unchanged from the previous stanza.
<Daytime> <battle> <many> <banner> <flags>
In day battles, you must use many banners and flags.
The difference here is that this is about “battles,” meetings held specifically for comparing alternatives. These battles, however, are ones in which differences can be clearly seen. Battles can take the form of any type of competitive event: a sports contest, hiring for a job, or choosing a romantic partner. Positioning is all about establishing ourselves in the minds of others to win these comparisons.
In terms of listening, the emphasis is again on drums as it was in the previous stanza. We must repeat our message like a consistent drum beat in order to have it stick. That rhythm of a repeated message creates the quality that Sun Tzu describes elsewhere as “stickiness.”
<Place> <by> <means> <of> <change> <man> <’s> <ear> <eye> <also>
Place people as a single unit where they can all see and hear.
This it the same line that ended the previous stanza. In that stanza, it was about enticing the senses in order to make our message memorable. How we position ourselves determines how we are positioning others. We unite theme as a group by the shared problems and concerns. We should think about this every time we describe what we do or had done in our position in claiming credit. In doing this, we are not only positioning ourselves but we are positioning those to who we are communicating
The theme here echoes that idea of unity in the previous verse. In Sun Tzu’s system, unity is strength. What we say repeatedly and what we show repeated must be a united message. It must unite our listeners by their shared values, 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 and who we do it for.