Science of Strategy Institute

[For those now joining us, A Strategic Principle A Day (ASPAD) is my on-going work explaining the Institute's strategic body of knowledge (outlined here). Posts are left up for one day for the general public and then moved to our Body of Strategic Knowledge, members-only area.]

The Mad Hatter gave excellent advice, when he said:

"Start at the beginning and when you come to the end, stop."

Bertrand Russell, from The Conquest of Happiness, pp. 114-117

We finished the organizational outline for the Institute's Strategic Body of Knowledge (S-BOK) over the holidays. Since we will be organizing all our certification and training material around this outline, I have decided to do one posting a day explaining these principles, at least for the next year. I will start with a general posting describing each of the 196 categories of principles on our outline.

SOSI is moving most of its web sites to a dedicated server over the next few weeks and months.

10. Guiliani saying out of early caucuses and primaries. (Sun Tzu: You can’t get ahead by falling behind.)

9. Romney’s not partnering with Christian conservatives in  Iowa. (Sun Tzu: On intersecting ground, make allies.)

8. Hillary spending everything on Super Tuesday. (Sun Tzu: Without resources, your army will die.)  

7. Obama taking over a month to separate from Wright  (Sun Tzu: Speed is the essence of war.)

6. Hillary expecting support from the media. (Sun Tzu: Know who guards your opponents left and right.)

In the first part of this discussion, we examined the stragic errors that are made when you are involved in a scandal. Strategy also offers rules for when your opponents are caught in scandals. The first rule is to stay away until your opponent creates an opening for you. In the last post, we described these scandals as a media feeding frenzy, as the shark in the press are driven frantic by the smell of blood.

One of the key differences between adaptive force of competitive strategy and organizing force of management planning is their totally different conceptions of timing. In organization, timing is about the clock and the calendar: the planning and keeping of schedules. However, in competition, timing is about the moments that arise as a confluence of events: the dynamics of enviromental change. Ancient Greek has two different words for these two concepts of time. Kronos is the time of scheduling.

Much of traditional strategy involves looking into the future and asking yourself about people's motivations and what they are likely to respond to your actions. Though people's responses cannot be predicted exactly, some responses are more likely than others. For Obama, political scandals like the political pedaling of Gov. Blagojevich are considered environmental attacks, equivalent to Sun Tzu's fire attacks.

I have just finished the outline for the Institute's Strategy Book of Knowledge. This outline details the major categories of principles involved in traditional competitive strategy. This are the areas of strategic knowledge for which we will be providing certification.  It is available  on-line here. All Institute members are invited to comment about its organization or the areas that need more detail or clarification.

A reader writes:

Your web-page states that Napoleon made use of "The Art of War". I spent eight years studying Napoleon's early career, and never discovered a single piece of evidence to show this. On the other hand, it is quite clear that he made use of the writings of the great French strategist, Pierre Bourcet, as well as those of the Chevalier Du Teil, among others. Napoleon didn't really need to read "The Art of War" because European writings contained all that he needed to develop into a great general. Yours, Martin BB.