The Art of War: Warrior Rules - winning by comparing positions

2. Best Opportunities and Actions > 2. Best Opportunities > 2. Comparing Opportunities

In comparing your opportunities, which of the follow best suits your situation?

1. I want to compare opportunities by how forces in the environment favors one over another.
   4.3 Leveraging Form

   4.3 Leveraging Form

   "You can find an advantage in all four of these situations."
   Sun Tzu's The Art of War 9:1:25

   Situation: 

   The most important form of space only exists in our minds. Strategy leverages our mental mapping of the contested territory. We must evaluate opportunities based on the form of our opportunity. The forms of physical strategic space is easier to understand, but they are becoming less important in our competitive decisions. The forms of psychological strategic space are more difficult to understand, but they are becoming increasingly important. As we move deeper into the information age, understanding the shape of our opportunities in psychological space is difficult without useful analogies that connect to our sense of physical space.

2. I want to compare opportunities by how far I have to go to explore them.
   4.4 Strategic Distance

   4.4 Strategic Distance

   "The ground determines the distance.
   The distance determines your numbers."
   Sun Tzu's The Art of War 4:4:10-11

   Situation: 

   There is a danger hidden in improved communication. While improved communication is incredibly valuable, it means that we can hear about opportunities from anywhere in the world. This fact can lure us into the dangerous strategic error of thinking that distance no longer matters in choosing our opportunities. There are two mistakes in this thinking. First, it assumes that distance is simply a physical measure of space. Second, it assumes the communication alone eliminates the problems of distance.

3. I want to compare opportunities by their appearances before exploring them.
   4.5 Opportunity Surfaces

   4.5 Opportunity Surfaces

   "You must analyze the obstacles, dangers, and distances.
   This is the best way to command."
   Sun Tzu's The Art of War 10:4:4-5
   

   Situation: 

   To pick high-opportunities, we must make judgments from a distance. We eliminate the most distant opportunities because we cannot see them clearly. We are warned not to judge a book by its cover, but we must judge opportunities by their surface characteristics. We want to conserve our resources by pursuing our best opportunities. We need tools to help us determine which opportunities are likely to be best.

4. I want to compare opportunities on the basis of how my situation is changing.
   4.8 Climate Support

   4.8 Climate Support

   "Don’t attack into the wind."
   Sun Tzu's The Art of War 12:2:14
   

   Situation: 

   To make the best decisions about pursuing opportunities, we not only have to consider current conditions but the direction in which those positions are likely to change. So far we have looked at future positions from their more static (ground) conditions of distance, form, surface, and fit. Now we need to think about future positions from the perspective of how those positions are going to be naturally built up or eroded by the current trends.