(From the competitive playbooks of Genghis Khan and Napoleon)
“The nature of strategy consists of always having, even with a weaker army (company), more forces at the point of attack than the enemy.” -Napoleon Bonaparte
I had an interesting conversation last week with a European CEO
of a mid-cap manufacturing company. He had been mentioned in the Wall Street Journal
wherein he described a convoluted recovery scheme that the editorial tone suggested
was both brash and nouveau. But I thought I recognized it for what it was: brilliant
and quite old. Since he reads this column I called and asked him if my hunch was
right and he laughed and reported that, indeed, it was. What follows is the military
history. It’s not hard to see the application to modern business as a way to provoke
your competition into making foolish, exploitable moves. It’s all about control.
The tactic’s first recorded use was by Genghis Khan and his Mongol
general Subedei Bahadur in 1241. Like Genghis Kahn, Subedei was a brilliant and
innovative strategist. He sent four distinct troop columns into Europe. One headed
directly for Poland and Germany which attracted all the European military forces
in that direction. This is exactly what Subedei wanted. The other three columns
entered Hungary in an indistinct fashion attacking various targets all while focusing
on keeping the Austrian forces from combining with the Hungarian. That was the actual
agenda—keep the enemy forces apart. When the time was right the three Mongol columns
then magically combined into one large force and shattered the unsupported Hungarian
forces.
It was brilliant back then. And remains so. The key in all competition
(war, business, etc.) is to avoid, or mitigate, your competition’s strengths and
exploit their weaknesses.* The Mongol Subedei could quickly combine forces to focus
on exploitable weakness in a way a large, unwieldy force couldn’t. War is largely
about real estate so this is a great advantage. By having multiple forces the Mongol
could control the movements of his enemy by forcing them to spread out to defend
multiple targets. This numerically weakened the individual targets’ defenses making
it easier (read: less costly) to attack them. Prevent your numerically superior
competition from concentrating its forces against you. Then divide and conquer them.
I covered this in the piece about Southwest Airlines elsewhere in this collection.
If you are skillful enough you can force your opponent to protect
itself so thinly that they abandon their position in order to survive elsewhere.
This is war in the best Sun Tzu tradition of winning with little or no fighting.
This tactic could, for example, lead to a favorable corporate merger when previously
none was possible.
Napoleon advanced the tactic using what has been called the “weighted
net.” Napoleon would send out numerous columns where, like a waving net, they would
focus on various threats and speedily envelope the useful or dangerous ones. Then
move on. This confused his enemies who would try to coalesce for an offensive attack
on something that looked weak, but would suddenly find Napoleon’s forces massing
more efficiently elsewhere, and then attacking with superior strength, before the
enemy could effectively combine. In effect Napoleon would direct his forces to act
like an octopus with waving arms. When one arm sensed something of value the other
arms would suddenly be brought into play to deal with the opportunity. When finished
they would separate to look for new opportunities. Elegant, effective stuff.
So, what’s the point? The point is that even a large, well-financed
competitor can’t optimally protect all of its markets, all of the time. By dividing
your forces you can confuse your target and cause them to think your approach is
coming from a different direction with a different intent, hiding your actual objective.
Done correctly this can cause your (hopefully) unenlightened competition to expend
resources to protect the incorrect target (think product or service), weakening
support for your actual objective. This opens the door for you. Never forget that
frontal attacks against hardened targets are seldom successful and always expensive.
Think about it…
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Notes: This is a variation
of the feint, which is discussed elsewhere. It’s another method of controlling your
enemy/competition through an elaborate form of deception. Never forget that, used
intelligently, deception makes war (competition) less costly and reduces risk. All
the Great generals have known this.
The phrase “plan with branches”
was coined in the late eighteenth century by French strategist Pierre de Bourcet.
*This is why you have to spend part of every day asking yourself,
“Has our competition’s strengths changed and are there any new weaknesses we can
now exploit?” Your stakeholders EXPECT you to think this way. You’re paid to do
it.
