Business

Improving Position: How War Makes Us Happier

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

Sun Tzu teaches the our perceptions must always different from reality. For example, what is your perception of the increasing happiness of people all over the world? If you follow news media, you would think that people are suffering from record levels of unhappiness. However, the opposite is actually true. The best subjective measure of improving positions is not our perceptions of others, but their perception of themselves. When people are asked about their own happiness, the results are surprising.

The Pace of Change as a Business and Political Weapon

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

Climate is the strategic factor that Sun Tzu associates with change, but change itself can change, for example, technology has rapidly increased the pace of change over the last few decades. This increase in the pace of change is one of the key reasons why people need to better understand the principles of Sun Tzu so they can make better decisions faster. Businesses who want to leverage the increasing pace of change against their opponents should be promoting Sun Tzu's ideas about adaptability to their customers.

Natural Systems: Stopping Change

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

Like most classical scientists, Sun Tzu sought to understand nature. Though he studied was human competition, he saw competition natural not a human artifact. Though human institutions are artificial because we create them, we do not create and cannot change the nature of competition itself. Whether we applaud it or hate it, one of the things that cannot stop is change. In watching this very entertaining video by Drew Carey ON Free Trade and

The Balance of Perspective: Chicken Little Media

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

One of the main benefits of learning Sun Tzu's system is that it forces you to think about the natural balance of reality. From Sun Tzu's perspective, nothing is good or bad in itself. Every development can be leveraged if you understand it. You can sail into the wind if you know how to tack. For example, the mainstream media has redefined its role in modern society as that of "Chicken Little," constantly running around claiming that the sky is falling.

Myopic Perspectives: Bias in Election Reporting

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

The most well-rounded perspective comes from consciously collecting a variety of viewpoints, but the most common problem in seeing positions is myopia. We are too close to them. This Ramussen poll illustrates the point nicely. All segments see media bias, but the further the distance from media viewpoints, the easier it is to see the outlines of this bias. Of course, the media doesn't see this bias at all.

Change Is Balanced: Not Good or Evil

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

Strategic cognition requires seeing the environment from the Asian perspective of balancing forces. Most of us are exposed from childhood to the media that trains us, incorrectly, that all changes are bad. Is it bad if housing prices are falling? Not if you are buying your first house. Is it bad if the dollar is falling? Not if you are selling American products abroad because this makes them cheaper. Is it bad that oil prices are rising? Doesn't high prices discourage consumption and make other forms of energy more competitive? Is that bad?

Allowing Time for Change: Hillary's Best Strategy

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

As I have written a thousand times before, the most common strategic error is thinking of competitive environments as controlled and predictable. This mistake is most commonly made by those who are used to being in control within controlled environments. One of the basic result of strategic cognition is that competitive environments are not controlled environments. For example, the media, politicos, and pundits keeps saying asking what Hillary is fighting for, since Obama nearly has the nomination wrapped up.

Destructive Collaboration: Why Newspapers are Dying

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

People commonly confuse competition with conflict. Conflict is expensive and often avoidable, but competition is necessary to identify what is better. People's opinions about what is better differ, and truth only comes out of the crucible of competition. In competition, the wrong approaches die. Without competition, entire industries die because there are more wrong approaches than the right ones. For example, look a how newspapers are dying today. This is because, as this article explains, the AP prevents competition.

Strategy in a Blink!

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

Strategy means many different things to different people. For some, it is a plan. For others, it is a flash of inspiration. Sun Tzu's strategy is different, but it wasn't until I read Blink! by Malcolm Gladwell (the author of "The Tipping Point") that I saw that what Sun Tzu invented was really a "rapid cognition" system for competitive situations. It's main value isn't in providing deep, detailed analysis.

Every Meeting Changes Positions

Submitted by GaryGagliardi on

The value of thinking in terms of advancing positions is that it allows you to easily clarify complicated question . For example, Sun Tzu taught that every meeting between opponents (even meetings that didn't result in conflict) changed their relative positions. So you avoid meetings that will damage your position and encourage meeting that will help your position. Simple. Right?

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