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Strategy and Tactics Matter
Apr 05, 2017
Brand power does not rest with your company or it's image makers or communicators. Your customers own your 'brand perception' and thanks to social media and the web they have a previously unimaginable power to exact a price when you screw with their values by using unacceptable tactics or fail to acknowledge your mistakes.
It's time for businesses to rethink the wisdom of traditional strategy and tactics. Check out spin sucks for some fantastic advice and tips!
http://spinsucks.com/communication/united-airlines-crisis-communications/
The trouble is we've grown up in world were being straight forward and direct is not always considered the wise option. For example type in the title of Sun Tzu's ancient treatise on military strategy and google comes up with about 70 million results. 'The Art of War' is clearly a popular text and still revered by many aspiring leaders despite the extraordinary changes that have transformed our understanding of business and it's modern 'theatre of operations'.
Around Sun Tzu's time the biggest technological advance was the forging of iron, a major achievement to be sure, but utterly remote and disconnected from our modern world experience, were convergence, digital technology and the prospect of artificial intelligence, have cast traditional assumptions about communication and commerce to the wind.
Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not about dispute to Sun Tzu's wisdom around ancient warfare or strategy, what I do dispute is 'The Art of Wars' utility as a guide for ethical behaviour or wise decision making in business. You may wish to argue its just an allegory for business strategy, fine but if you see Sun Tzu on a business leader's book shelf my advice is run! or if you can't run, get a good lawyer and be prepared to do battle.
Quotes from 'The Art of War' - Sun Tzu
All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.
If we do not wish to fight, we can prevent the enemy from engaging us even though the lines of our encampment be merely traced out on the ground. All we need do is to throw something odd and unaccountable in his way.
Such expressions of wise military strategy simply don't translate to a modern business or boardroom, where governance and corporate values are more likely to linked to transparency, integrity and brand authenticity, not subterfuge and secrecy. Nor does Sun Tzu's wisdom form the basis of any trustworthy dealings in political, social or economic spheres where truth is held to be a virtue; dare I suggest a democracy.
‘In war, truth is the first casualty,’ words attributed to the fifth century B.C. Greek dramatist and poet Aeschylus. The corollary might be that when we apply battlefield tactics to modern business or politics we risk validating falsehood and dishonesty by accepting them as part of normal strategy and tactics.
Business is of course highly competitive, and yes winning does matter, but that does not mean we should adopt a war footing and apply battle tactics to commerce. Business leaders and politicians do not have to live in a post truth world, unless of course, they choose to do so.
Perhaps, if the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was a more widely read as a business author, things would be different?
Quotes from 'Meditations' - Marcus Aurelius
If it is not right, don't do it: if it is not true, don't say it.
Your impulse on every occasion should be to a complete survey of what exactly this thing is which is making an impression on your mind - to open it out by analysis into cause, material, reference and the time-span within which it must cease to be.
What is directing the mind of of these people? What are they set on, what governs their likes and values? Train yourself to look at their souls naked. When they think their blame will hurt or their praise advantage, what conceit that is.
No one is perfect, we have all at sometime lied or misled by omission, but that does not mean dishonesty is a sound strategy. Even if you put virtue to one side, the lessons of consequential ethics alone, should be more than enough to convince anyone in business, that deception is not worth the risk. Think Volkswagen and the emissions-fixing scandal, nothing against VW they're just one of the latest examples of a large corporation that has discovered the 'means do not justify the ends'.
Now you can add United Airlines to the list, by initially trying to blame the passenger, they again failed to find a real position of strength. Mea Culpa - is an acknowledgement that forgiveness is required, sometimes it is no one else's fault but your own. We need more Marcus Aurelius and Less Sun Tzu.
The people of Christchurch, New Zealand, were awarded the Charter for Compassion’s prestigious #Compassion #Humanitarian #Award in recognition of their response to the terror attacks at two Christchurch Mosques, at an awards ceremony on 10 October in Monterrey, Mexico.
OPINION - JOHN SELLWOOD
It was beautiful to see - a new generation taking to the streets to yell 'this matters please listen'. In my day it was the 81 Springbok tour and the anti-nuclear protest movement. At one time or other, both seen as fringe issues, led by extremists intent on challenging the status quo and upsetting the powers that be. But with time comes perspective, and what was once thought extreme has a habit of becoming mainstream consensus.
The future of our environment is the issue of our time, and whether you see it as emotional contagion or political action, climate change protests have ignited our youth with a sense of political purpose not seen for decades. It's democracy in action, the wild and uncomfortable belief that ordinary people, and not just policymakers or power brokers, have a legitimate say in the events that are shaping their lives.
What is extraordinary of course is that the protests are led by a vanguard of school children. It's everything a young Bob Dylan wrote about fifty-five years ago when he rattled a post-war generation with his protest inspired theme song 'The times they are 'a-changin'.
For parents who took part in the march, it seemed as much about supporting their children as chanting for climate change action, but then the motives are really one and the same. If we truly care for coming generations surely we must do everything in our power to sustain a thriving environment; why take risks with the wellbeing of your children?
Personally, I wanted to stand alongside our young people and say well done you're not alone. Yes, I know your fear, because I can still recall my own cold war dread as a teenager. But in my day the threat of nuclear war and mutually assured destruction was only ever an imagined possibility, so how much more terrifying for today's young people? They are grappling with overwhelming scientific evidence that the day of reckoning has actually arrived.
My world then and their world now are a lifetime apart; the issues and geopolitics have radically changed, but sadly there seems to be one constant that remains - a deeply held fear of a world unravelling. This is not how our children should grow-up; worried for their future. You know it, I know it, they know it, and that is why 'The times they are a-changin'. If you want confident children then gift them some hope.
Video 422 10bit - using Panasonic Gh5s handheld at 50 frames for frisson. Video available to all. Music copyright and protected. I have used music for non profit education purposes only and have my fingers crossed.
It was beautiful to see - a new generation taking to the streets to yell 'this matters please listen'. In my day it was the 81 Springbok tour and the anti-nuclear protest movement. At one time or other, both seen as fringe issues, led by extremists intent on challenging the status quo and upsetting the powers that be. But with time comes perspective, and what was once thought extreme has a habit of becoming mainstream consensus.
The future of our environment is the issue of our time, and whether you see it as emotional contagion or political action, climate change protests have ignited our youth with a sense of political purpose not seen for decades. It's democracy in action, the wild and uncomfortable belief that ordinary people, and not just policymakers or power brokers, have a legitimate say in the events that are shaping their lives.
What is extraordinary of course is that the protests are led by a vanguard of school children. It's everything a young Bob Dylan wrote about fifty-five years ago when he rattled a post-war generation with his protest inspired theme song 'The times they are 'a-changin'.
For parents who took part in the march, it seemed as much about supporting their children as chanting for climate change action, but then the motives are really one and the same. If we truly care for coming generations surely we must do everything in our power to sustain a thriving environment; why take risks with the wellbeing of your children?
Personally, I wanted to stand alongside our young people and say well done you're not alone. Yes, I know your fear, because I can still recall my own cold war dread as a teenager. But in my day the threat of nuclear war and mutually assured destruction was only ever an imagined possibility, so how much more terrifying for today's young people? They are grappling with overwhelming scientific evidence that the day of reckoning has actually arrived.
My world then and their world now are a lifetime apart; the issues and geopolitics have radically changed, but sadly there seems to be one constant that remains - a deeply held fear of a world unravelling. This is not how our children should grow-up; worried for their future. You know it, I know it, they know it, and that is why 'The times they are a-changin'. If you want confident children then gift them some hope.
Video 422 10bit - using Panasonic Gh5s handheld at 50 frames for frisson. Video available to all. Music copyright and protected. I have used music for non profit education purposes only and have my fingers crossed.