“All wars are won, or lost, before they are fought.” –Sun Tzu
And that, folks, is what this manual is all about: A toolkit for winning marketplace battles.
Sun Tzu, arguably one of the greatest generals in history, said
a great general (e.g. a great CEO which is largely the same thing) puts his army
(employees) beyond the possibility of defeat.
I have spent many years in the high-end human capital and project
management business. As a student of military history I realized early on in my
entrepreneurial and recruiting careers that the best senior level executives think
a lot like history’s great generals (Scipio Africanus, Sun Tzu, Genghis Khan, Napoleon,
Alexander the Great, the war strategist Carl von Clausewitz, etc. The list is long.). I also realized that classic basic battle tactics and techniques were easily adapted
to the modern business landscape. And, furthermore, that the tactics could be frighteningly
effective at marginalizing or even neutralizing a more powerful, better funded,
competitor (watching military veterans do this can be a thing of beauty). I discovered
if you have a practical knowledge of battle tactics, and your competition doesn’t,
you have an asymmetry of power with you holding the bigger axe. You just have to
decide if you want to swing it since sometimes it’s enough to simply be seen holding
the thing. And, of course, it might be the real thing, or it might look like the
real thing, but actually be made out of paper mâché—that’ll be your secret. The
point is if they think it’s real, well, you are controlling their perceived reality
and that’s great. That’s The Art of Corporate Warfare. Fun, isn’t it?
The fact is what most superior chief-level managers understand,
on some level, is that corporate competition is a form of warfare. Civilized, hopefully,
but warfare nonetheless, like it or not. An experienced entrepreneur or business
leader understands this because most have seen the wake of corporate battles lost.
They have seen, not just the nasty wreckage losing creates for them personally,
but also the devastation business reversals can cause to a company’s workers and
their families (functionally the workers are the CEO’s army) and ultimately the
equity holders (the equity holders are the CEO/general’s civilian population). This
is an important reason why a great general or CEO wants to win. It’s too expensive
to lose.
One of the interesting things that happened when my Art of Corporate
Warfare newsletter became popular, not long after 9/11, was a certain fraction of
readers pushed back very hard on the whole idea that business and war were basically
the same thing and only the stakes are different. You could describe some of the
reactions as moral outrage that I would dare to compare a “real war” with something
that happens in the perceived antiseptic environment of corporate competition. This
attitude never worked for me since I routinely saw families economically shattered
because the breadwinner’s employer got bested in the marketplace. You witness that
emotional devastation as much as I did and winning takes on a whole new meaning
with niceties kicked to the nearest grubby curb. Then there’s the self-doubt that
can’t help but creep into an entrepreneur, the big bore engines of any growing economy,
when they fail.
When I reached out to a sample of the disapproving group I found
that very few were blood war vets who understand emotional strain and loss on a
level few non-vets can even begin to understand. No, the naysayers were mostly readers
simply moribund in their jobs. They were corpses with a pulse. They were stuck and,
if they didn’t change the way they thought, would always be stuck. From their myopic,
slacker perspective they were the worn gears of some uncaring machine that continued
to slowly crank away, grinding down the souls of its weakest human parts, including
themselves.
That’s a grim perspective but, let’s face it, big machines need
parts to function and generate value. If you are one of these parts, clearly valuable
because you are being paid, embrace it if you can’t change it. You may be fungible
(which ultimately everyone is) but that doesn’t mean the company doesn’t need you.
Don’t just simply bitch about it. It’s simple, really: fix it or shut up and if
the only way you can shut up is to leave then, well, see ya!
The group of people content to just bitch or suffer in silence
and wallow in self- pity are seriously not-my-audience, LOL.
These people are not “corporate warriors”. If the wallowers have
no real interest in making some change to increase shareholder equity, even if it’s
just by a little, then I have no interest in helping them. Period. My newsletter
was always like leading a horse to water. Most of the readers drank well, sometimes
insatiably, (especially the thankful entrepreneurs who often compared the newsletter
to taking a machinegun to a knife fight). But if the horse had no interest in the
water then fine. I figured that’s what buzzards were for.
CEOs, senior managers and people doing start-ups, however, typically
embrace the whole Corpwar ethos. They get it. They don’t expect anything to be easy.
The good ones know battle, in any form, is not for the squeamish. They know battles
happen, you just have to be better than the other guy because you need to win.
It is essential to understand that traditional war and fierce
business competition are largely the same thing. Generally speaking, somebody has
something you want and they don’t want to give it to you at a “price” you are willing
to pay. So, if you really want it, you have to take it. This is speaking symbolically
but hopefully you get the point. And, if you engage to take it, you have to win
because losing sucks for all kinds of reasons, including the simple fact losing
is expensive in so many ways. So battle, whether it’s a blood war in Afghanistan,
or a battle for shampoo market share, is about the same thing. It’s about WINNING.
Winning in the least amount of time, at the lowest possible cost, and for the greatest
reward possible. Pretty simple. It’s what you get a paycheck to do. You don’t get
paid to lose. You get paid to win.
If you get that, if you really understand it, and embrace it,
then you are already on the path to being a true corporate warrior who, by definition,
“does what it takes” to add value to the enterprise employing them. That’s why people
like me look so hard for people like them. Corporate warriors, at any place on the
org chart, are the tornadic winds that drive relevant improvement in their part
of the organization. In the case of the CEO or entrepreneur, it’s the whole organization.
Look back at history’s great battles through an open mental lens
and you will see there is a lot to learn about ridding yourself of a competitor.
It’s basic. You want them gone. They don’t want to go. Or they want you gone. But
you don’t want to go. Pretty basic. Ask any soldier.
Welcome to war. If the analogy doesn’t work for you then you’re
at the wrong party. Go get another book. One of those touchy feely “simple” ways-to-get-ahead
books at the airport bookshop. Enjoy yourself and good luck with that bright red
bulls-eye on your back.
But if you are willing to do what it takes to win then this book
provides some very useful tools. Not all by any stretch, but some very important
ones you’re unlikely to find collected elsewhere. These tools range from techniques
based on historical battles (e.g. Waterloo, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Khan’s
tactics, etc.) to personal techniques and philosophies passed along to me by clients,
candidates and friends over the years. A lot of what I learned is in this collection.
Some of it is tough. So what.
Ultimately what it all gets down to is creating sustainable increases
in the value of the business and, that done, maybe even help improve society and
the environment. That’s what a corporate warrior does. And this book will help you
do this if you keep some of the lessons front of mind, like asking yourself a few
times a day “What is the most important thing I can be doing RIGHT NOW to improve
our business?” Or, “How can I control the movements of my competition by adjusting
their perception of my condition or intentions?” Or, simply, “What would Alexander
the Great do?” (Answer: He would think outside the box and there’s a useful example
in this collection.)
And throughout, try and have fun. You can’t tell kids this, but
more seasoned readers will understand: “Life is short.” So have fun. Mess with the
head of your counterpart. Fiddle with them. Stick your foot out and watch them trip
over it. That’s cool. Enjoy it because if they could do the same thing to you they
would, but you thought of it first. So you get to do the laughing. If that sounds
too harsh, well, you know the drill: Get another book.
Think about it…
Now, go beat up your competition. Go win.
Tal Newhart
TalNewhart.com
Chicago
***
A required note on the contents
Many of the conversations,
interviews and shared experiences detailed in this collection were originally published
under strict terms of confidentiality in perpetuity. Some of the clearances took
over a year to obtain with clients, et al. who were given the provisional right
to reasonably redact and/or change the content in order to gain their comfort and
permission. In certain cases the changes were significant enough for me to decline
to publish the final version. Those were tossed…thanks for the memories. What remains
in the collection is pretty much what was said, largely verbatim off recordings,
or from in situ notes detailing what was actually said and done at the time. Even
the aggressive stuff.
