Business competition has become increasingly tactical since the demise of grand new economy strategies.Drawing from The Thirty-Six Stratagems, an ancient Chinese text that served as a practical
complement to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, this accessible book provides a tool kit. Krippendorff, a consultant, offers brief chapters on each of the stratagems and how they apply to corporate battles. Readers will find many of these stratagems familiar, such as how to distract entrenched opponents with diversionary attacks, and a few that are unfamiliar, such as how to demoralize intransigent enemies with aggressive kindness. Each comes with colorful (though sometimes tired) recent examples from business as well as from the period of warring Chinese kingdoms. What the book lacks in rigor and depth it makes up for in imaginative breadth. And the stratagems drive home the book’s larger message: that Western companies’ emphasis on static, systematic strategy has often blinded them to the advantages of opportunistic maneuvers.