Clausewitz on Leadership, Management, and Strategy

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if it’s not clear whether you should split your forces or try to win one territory at a time, then you can't rely on outdated traditional theories to make decisions in the heat of battle.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.