 |
|
RECENT PRESS |
Ancient strategies for today's businesses
25 January 2004
The Philadelphia Inquirer
(c) Copyright 2004, The Philadelphia Inquirer. All Rights Reserved.
Reviewed by Cecil Johnson
Microsoft's
strategists may be surprised to learn that their trial-and-error
approach to launching products and services has roots in an ancient
Chinese military stratagem called "beat the grass to startle the
snake."
That advice is
dispensed in Stratagem 14 of 36 in a 2,500-year-old Chinese treatise
on warfare compiled during China's warring-states period.
Consultant Kaihan Krippendorff demonstrates in his new book how
those pearls of wisdom may be used in the competitive world of
business.
Explaining Stratagem 14, Krippendorff writes: "When you approach a
bush in which you fear a poisonous snake hides, you can beat the
bush with a stick. If a snake is hiding, it will either strike or
run away. Either way you will know if the bush is safe, and can
decide where to place your next step with this information."
That, Krippendorff insists, is what Microsoft and many other
successful companies do when they launch small, indirect attacks,
rather than large, decisive ones, against their competition. They
are, inadvertently perhaps, following the prescription of the 14th
stratagem, which says: "Any suspicion about the enemy's
circumstances must be investigated. Before military action, be sure
to ascertain the enemy's situation; repeated reconnaissance is an
effective way to discover the hidden enemy."
And: "The image of Microsoft thrusting into new territory and
cutting down the competition through blitzkrieg warfare is, for the
most part, inaccurate. Microsoft follows a patient, deliberate
approach that allows it to feel out the competition as it works its
way into a leading position over a course of many years,"
Krippendorff writes.
With each chapter and stratagem, Krippendorff provides an example
from ancient Chinese history to further illustrate his point.
All the stratagems explained by Krippendorff bear cryptic and
intriguing titles such as, "To catch something let it go"; "Exchange
a brick for a jade"; "Invite your enemy onto the roof, then remove
the ladder."
Much of the advice dispensed in The Art of the Advantage resembles
that in Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Krippendorff even includes
numerous quotes from it.
The Art of the Advantage may come to rival Sun Tzu's work as a
source of Eastern wisdom that can be put to practical use by Western
business leaders.
The author includes an appendix that indicates ways to use the
stratagems as brainstorming tools. Krippendorff has made The Art of
the Advantage tantalizing reading by juxtaposing ancient Chinese
history, Taoist philosophy and examples of how some modern companies
are already practicing what those ancient Chinese generals were
preaching. Any business leader will gain an advantage by using this
book.
|
|
 |
