Sun Tzu and the Art of Business summary

Consider a river speeding down a mountainside. It washes away everything in its path. But where does its power lie? According to Sun Tzu, the answer is in the fact that a river always flows downhill, and never uphill. 

Taking everything from your enemy can sound like a daunting prospect. But if you seek to be like the river, it can be done. To win in war and business, don’t rush toward the difficult heights. Seek the easy lowlands instead.

So now you know to target your enemies’ weakest points. But this knowledge gives you nothing if you don’t actually know what their weakest points are. When it comes to planning an attack, you need to know your enemy.

According to Sun Tzu, the wise general emerges victorious because he has foreknowledge of his enemy’s plans, capabilities, and even his state of mind.

What’s most essential to winning a war? Sun Tzu’s answer might surprise you. Rather than military might, or overwhelming resources, he believed that the crucial component of successful warfare was speed. According to Sun Tzu’s writings, when the enemy gives you an opening, you must be as swift as a hare.

The reason for this is simple: a fast-moving army is capable of defeating an army much larger than itself. When your army marches with lightning speed, you can target enemy units individually, and defeat them before the rest of your enemy’s forces have time to respond to your attack. That’s how you pick off a bigger army piece by piece, moving rapidly from one unit to the next. Your slow-moving enemy never gets a chance to concentrate its forces in one place to confront you.

It’s easy for your enemy to defend against an attack it knows is coming. If you want to really inflict damage, in war like in business, you need to shock your enemies and hit them with a surprise offensive. By the time they realize they’re under attack, the victory will already be yours.

Sun Tzu teaches us a two-pronged approach to surprising your enemy. You need to use two attacks: a direct attack and an indirect one. 

From Sun Tzu’s ancient civilization to our modern times, mankind has asked itself: What makes a good leader? What qualities does someone need to inspire their troops to victory, or their people to prosperity?

These days the question also applies in the world of business. What type of person can steer their employees to success? And, on top of this, what characteristics mark someone out as an unsuitable, or even a dangerous choice for leadership?