Inspiration
and timeless
insight
from master
strategist
Gen.
Carl von
Clausewitz's in his classic
book, “On
War”. While it’s a book
about military strategy, it can
also be readily applied to the
world of business.
Gen.
Clausewitz's thinking on leadership, strategy, and the art of war
have become known throughout the world and his thoughts run through
many of the subsequent works of top European and American military
commanders, political scientists, and management gurus.
Just
as conditions change rapidly in war, rendering even the most
carefully plotted strategy obsolete -- so it is in business. Whether
you're battling entrenched competitors, fighting to seize or defend
market territory, or forging alliances with former enemies, leaders
must make bold strategic decisions that will help ensure success.
One
of the most fundamental idea in
Clausewitz’
works is
that strategy
is the key to winning any
clash between antagonistic,
purposeful, and intelligent wills of
leaders – in
war or in business. Successful
senior managers
are always in search of new
strategies
that will help
guide
them in their decision making and in setting and
achieving successful
short- and long-term goals
for
their organization.
Clausewitz
– Lessons Learned & Shared
The
following are some of the
many lessons Gen.
Clausewitz learned over
time and shared with
others on leadership,
strategy, and warfare.
-
The
clash of opposing wills is key
to the need
for developing a
successful military
or business
strategy.
-
Remember,
if there's no conflict,
there is no war, and
thus no
urgent need for a
new, winning strategy.
-
Uncertainty
is an essential component of all strategic thinking.
-
True
strategist don't complain about uncertainty but
embrace
it, just
as a
chess players
embrace and understand
he can't fully anticipate an
opponent's next move.
-
We are used to relying
on being able to repeat specific
actions
that lead to
certain predictable effects --
but those
are usually
not strategic situations.
-
In war, as in business, the
predictably right decision one day might lead to disaster on another
day.
-
If neither attack nor defense is always right,
if it’s not clear whether you should split your forces or try to
win one territory at a time, then you can't rely on outdated
traditional theories
to make decisions in the heat of
battle.
-
Even when a
business employs a new technology or
approach, it's only a matter of time
before your opponent follows suit.
No
advantage lasts long, and
building a long
range strategy
on a
temporary new fad
will
lead
to failure.
-
Under
ever-changing conditions in
one’s
surroundings — such as terrain, weather, the economy, technology,
or
customer attitudes — business leaders
must constantly evaluate the potential advantages to be gained by
unexpectedly shifting
one’s strategy.
Gen.
Clausewitz specifically
recommended
that leaders engage in continuous imaginative
and thoughtful contemplation of
potential
new
strategies to achieve changing long range goals. He further proposed
that only geniuses can truly
handle strategic thinking well
-- and he called
for a genius
to be appointed
to head each army or business that
wishes to succeed. Clausewitz
made
it abundantly clear that you
have to be exceptional
at your job to fill the shoes of a true leader
and
strategist.
Leaders
and Coup
D’Oeil
War,
like business, is primarily an intellectual activity - and
it is the inherent uncertainty of both that requires a leader to be
intellectually superior and flexible to
succeed.
In
the midst of war, strategies
often
need
to be modified
or set
aside at key
moments
of truth by
truly
effective
leaders. Because of the
uncertainty that is always present, Gen.
Clausewitz placed
particular importance on what he calls instinctual
intelligence to rapidly
ferret out what’s
really happening within
any given situation.
Leaders
must be continuously exploring the need
for new
strategies,
tactics, and plans
to succeed in an uncertain future. They
must retain some trace of an
inner light
that will lead to future success,
and the courage to go where that faint light or
instinctual intuition
leads.
He
calls this intellectual
ability
-- seeing
at a glance.
The French term is Coup
d'Oeil. Anyone who has been in a
position of leadership in business is familiar with having
to make a decision quickly and based on incomplete information. A
leader who is a genius can
cut instantly through the ‘fog of
war’ and
see the changing environment and
opportunities to succeed. The leader
that has this ability will
end up ‘winning’
the war.
Danger
and the great burden of responsibility produces in a true leader,
a sense of liberation and a renewed intellectual vigor. The true
leader is not crushed by uncertainty and new challenges, but is
enlivened by them -- even when the threat of defeat is always
present.
Thinking
Strategically
in
Business
and War
What
is the purpose of doing business? In its simplest
form, it is the creation of wealth by selling something of value. But
that simple definition conceals a whole host of individual acts, each
of which must be planned, conducted, and then joined together in
strategy and tactics to successfully achieve the overall goal and
series of objectives.
These
acts can be divided into two categories: those that involve tactics,
and those that involve strategy. Tactics
are concerned with the use of one’s
forces in specific
battles,
while strategy
is concerned with the collection
of battles
needed
to
achieve the goal
of winning
the
war.
Consider the case of the British Gen. Charles Cornwallis, who at
one point had won every battle he fought during the American
Revolution. The price of each victory, however, was that
his army continued to shrink due to casualties. To hold the
territory he won in each battle, he established a garrison at the
site and left behind a small force of his men. By the time of his
last victory, his army was too small to hold any conquered
territory and each of his small garrisons was overwhelmed by the
American army leading to Cornwallis' defeat and the end of the
war.
|
The
following are some other lessons learned Clausewitz offers on
leadership and strategy in business and war.
-
Leaders must realize that success is built on a chain of individual
decisions, each leading to the next. Each action must be seen as a
link within the whole series of events to win a market or client
today. Unfortunately, this can lead to spreading a company's
resources too thin to defend itself from competitors of tomorrow.
-
Strategy
should always strive
to give
shape and meaning to tactical moves. Since
events never seem
to go
according to plan, often
the
real winning
strategy
will develop while
under
siege, in the heat of battle.
-
Strategy
is a never-ending process
that attends tactics, even as they are being carried out. This
leads to one of the major
problems many companies develop when
they formulate strategy in the board room and then order
workers to
carry it out. True
leaders who
make strategy ought
to
be down on the battlefield, else their
strategy will often
be at odds with reality.
-
Strategy
prepares the way for tactics to succeed. The great strategist
will take the
many small
tactical
victories,
build on them, and
continue
to adapt
their
strategy and tactics as
needed.
Business leaders should
read about the campaigns of Frederick
the Great, who was badly outnumbered during the Seven Years' War,
and yet prevailed through superior strategy. He had the foresight
to attempt only what he knew he could achieve and never to engage
in a decisive battle head-on with the enemy. He knew he couldn't
beat them directly, so he sought instead to exhaust them,
economically and psychologically, by prolonging
the war and launching small attacks at their weakest points.
|
-
There are three things that lead to victory in
battle: Surprise,
the advantage of terrain, and the attack from several sides at once.
-
Interestingly, the
defender usually holds the
advantage over the attacker. When
defenders have
chosen the battlefield, have
the advantage of terrain, and have
gained a
superior position, then they
can turn from defending to attacking,
conquering, and
winning.
-
It
is rarely the first mover who becomes the industry powerhouse.
In
other words, long-term success comes in the counterattack. The
successful defender waits and then attacks. The
transition from defense to attack must be rapid and overwhelming.
This must
be incorporated into the strategy from the outset.
As
Napoleon once declared, "The whole art
of war consists of a well reasoned
and extremely circumspect defense,
followed by a rapid and audacious attack." In launching an
attack, also consider
the wisdom of Chinese general Sun
Tzu, who spelled out the best
ways to confront the enemy back
in the fourth century B.C.:
"The highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's
plans; the next best is
to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in order
is to attack the
enemy's army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to
besiege walled cities."
Key
Elements
of Strategy
The
most common element of victorious campaigns, whether in military
history or in business today, is the advantage of numerical
superiority, although
there are exceptions.
At Leuthen, Frederick the Great defeated an army of 80,000
Austrians by attacking its flank with only 30,000 men. At
Rossbach, he defeated the combined Austrian and French armies by
pretending to retreat and then setting up an ambush. Frederick's
strategy for fighting larger armies was to keep his own force
closely together. In
this way, he could meet a scattered enemy on at least equal terms
at any point.
|
The
lesson for business executives is this -- If
you don't have numerical superiority over the competition, you must
create a relative superiority of numbers at decisive points
by using your forces skillfully.
Two
basic principles cover the whole plan of fighting a war and serve as
a guide to everything else:
-
First, act in as concentrated a manner as possible. Reduce the
enemy's power to the fewest possible centers of gravity. Attack
against those centers of gravity should be reduced to the fewest
possible major operations if possible.
-
Second, act as quickly as possible. Do
not stop or take detours without a good reason. However,
once
an
attack has succeeded, it is important to stop after the objective
has been achieved.
Otherwise, one can
give up the advantage rather quickly, leaving oneself
exhausted and vulnerable to a counterattack.
A
determined enemy will not allow time for long-range, complex
strategies to unfold before they respond.
A company that
has only $2 million to spend in advertising can't compete
nationally against a competitor with a $100 million budget.
However,
by concentrating all of its marketing efforts in a single market,
it might gain an advantage over the dominant brand that must
divide its budget among 100 markets.
|
It
is significant to note that Napoleon was defeated by Spain, which
wasn't a first rate power and didn't have a first-rate army. He was
worn down, bit by bit, by guerrilla action.
The
following are some more
key
lessons learned that all of
today’s
leaders should understand.
-
As
we have seen in modern times, guerrilla
action
can threaten the largest, most well-trained, and best-equipped army
in the world.
-
A technological edge is usually transient. The various sides
usually catch up fairly quickly in terms of technology or hardware.
-
When every opponent has the same
weapons, the superiority is gained by the side with the greatest
will and determination.
-
The ability to channel and mold the wrath, energy, and motivation of
a people into what Clausewitz calls "smoldering embers"
creates a devastating force that is often impossible to defeat.
Consider the Vietnam and Afghanistan Wars.
In
business, when
a company engages the passions of its
employees and the
customer in their
business system, plans,
and
processes
--
it creates an unstoppable force that is difficult to defeat.
Think Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon,
Tesla...
Moral
Force
and
‘Will’ of
Leaders
and Organizations
Finally,
one of the topics that Clausewitz treats
as mostly overlooked in theories of war is moral
force, which he equates with ‘will’.
He writes that this force
is even more important than the military might of an army.
Anyone
who has studied corporate culture and its importance in the overall
success of the enterprise will recognize that
Clausewitz is describing
the
enthusiasm, zeal, faith, and loyalty of a company's workers — or
the lack of those qualities — that
can
make or break even the best business model.
Just
as moral force, one’s
‘will’, and genius are the qualities necessary to make a great
leader, Clausewitz
identifies qualities
that
make great soldiers
or workers:
valor,
skillfulness, a willingness to endure hardship, and
zeal.
He collectively calls those qualities ‘spirit’.
From
continuous exertion and victories,
the soldier
or worker learns his own strength. The
more a leader demands of his soldiers and
observes the outcomes, the more
confident he can be that they'll be capable of carrying out orders
and achieving ‘stretch
goals’.
In a
strategic operation, everyone must give his greatest effort so that
where one group falls short, another may take up the slack. It is the
leader's job to guide and lift those under him to that level of
action.
In
the end, a
great leader
is a true creative
force in the world. These
leaders
are
generally
possessed
of a deep sense of honor
and a boldness
of action that is at all times guided by a superior intellect.
A
corollary to that is the quality of perseverance,
‘holding firm’ to carefully thought
out strategy
and goals when confronted with adverse
appearances of a
particular moment along the way. Once
a leader has thought out his strategy and charted a course, it is
almost certain that in the heat of battle, things will look far
different from what he expected. It is at that crucial moment that he
has to have the strength of his convictions to stay the course –
and
make needed adjustments.
The
greatest lesson that business leaders can learn from Clausewitz is
that there
is no strategy that always succeeds when you are on the attack. To
win, you must constantly stay alert to every change in the terrain,
and every shift in your enemy's forces, and respond in ways that give
you an advantage – and
to
recognize that your advantage is only momentary, and you must be
prepared to keep fighting the war – forever.
Other
historic works I recommend all managers eventually ought to read
include Machavelli’s
“The Prince”
and Sun
Tsu’s “The Art of War”.
You
might also want to look at some
of the previous
Articles
on Management posted on the Summerton Blog.
