The Five Fundamentals are the core of the Art of Strategy. Learning to be aware of these and using them in everyday life is a challenge that will return great benefits. They are the basis for the Calculations. Each of these Fundamentals will be examined in greater depth in future posts. The Five Fundamentals are the trunk of the tree that splits into the branches. The application of these five ideas will help you to create harmony and end conflict with minimal loss of resources, for example, feelings as a resource in a relationship, time as a resource in your life. Here are the Five:
Goal (Tao)
Nature
Situation
Leadership
Art
If you are familiar with the Eastern concept of the Tao, you already know what it means. For those who are not, it is the Goal - of the person, relationship or organization; the worldview, the way life is looked at. It is the guiding principle that informs every action. For example, for many the main goal is to help others. So they may become health care providers, volunteers, maybe join the Red Cross or the Peace Corps. For too many of our political leaders, their Goal, or guiding principle, is not the same as the goals of the people that elected them. They are beholden to their party, their money providers - everything, it seems, but the people they are supposed to be beholden to. This is an easy way to observe the results of not aligning the goals of the organization. Our governement cannot act on what is best for the people of this country until they unite on common ground: respect for life.
Nature and Situation are closely related. Nature is that which defines the particular environment in which the challenge is found. Situation is the the elements of the circumstances we may find ourselves in. Nature may be physical features of the geography an army finds itself in, like mountains, crossing a river, etc. Nature may also be human nature, as in the emotional or spiritual nature of a person or organization. Situation is the number of troops in your army as opposed to the number in the opponent's army. Situation is the technology employed. Situation may be the particular people in the group you have to deal with at the moment. The leader must understand (calculations) both the nature and situation of the conflict. Resources can be completely wasted by acquiring and/or employing them incorrectly for the situation or nature. Don't send a person with strong anti-eastern-culture convictions to negotiate with an Eastern leader.
Leadership is the leadership skills that every leader should develop. They are the skills that bring together the organization. They are the focus that inspires. The four leadership skills are:
Detachment
Patience
Intelligence
Etiquette
We shall cover these in greater depth in future posts. They are worthy of separate discussion due to their importance in the execution of the plan. In the Fall 2011 semester we covered some ideas in Engineering Administration class that tie in here very well. It has been observed that most of our industry leadership finds it much easier to formulate a plan (strategy) than to execute the plan. This is the central idea: strategy without execution (tactics) is failure. Execution without strategy also leads to failure when the organization is executing plans that are not unified. The vision and mission statements of an organization are perfect examples of the stated Tao, or Goal, of the organization. It is the unifying principles that inspire and guide the organization to work together as one, to transcend differences and conflict.
Art is the tactics. It is the execution. A flexibility is necessary to adapt to constant change. A flexible art is more necessary now than ever, with the pace of change at a higher rate than ever in our history. It is not enough to observe or bemoan the change. We need to adapt and change. Fighting the change (life is change, we don't want to fight life) is a waste of resources. Change is inevitable. Not changing is stiffness and death, or obsolescence. In my classes with much younger people at university, I find the attention span to be much different than what I am used to. Not bad, not worse, just different. That is what allows me to adapt and change: choosing my perspective/perception. I could complain that the young people show disrespect by playing games and surfing the web during class. I could be upset or offended by the many times someone has asked me a question or engaged in conversation, then turned away to play or surf or talk to someone else during my second sentence. I have chosen to see this as a challenge, not a problem. Whether it is good or bad, disrespectful or a sign of some other perceived social malady is not relevent. My goal is to live effectively in this changing world, to stay young by being young, by being flexible. So I simply accept what is, find a way to work with it, and choose my perception so that I may subtract attachment to any personal philosophy that is ineffective in working with the change. Those attachments and the Three Arts of the Warrior will be the subject of a future post.
What we have discussed in this post is the beginning of acquiring the knowledge, awareness and skills to formulate the strategy, based on a good central goal (vision, mission), and with the ability and unity to execute the plan.
