‘The Art of War’: The greatest strategy book ever written | Roger Martin

Some people, when I wax eloquent about "The Art of War," say reading that is not as good as doing an MBA. And I would say, it's a bit of apples and oranges. I think it's this broad philosophical book that MBA students would be well advised to take on and read in business school and say, "If I step back from that, could I get a better perspective on how to use this?"

The great military strategists, the Sun Tzus and the von Clausewitzs, had a way of conceptualizing the competition between forces. They saw the best result of military strategy is not having a war. Strategy in business is a relatively new enterprise. It really only came into existence in the late 50s, early 60s, and it was an offshoot of military strategy.

People think business and war is all about the numbers, and analyzing everything, and quantifying everything—and it's not. In military strategy, there are really two actors that attention was paid to: one is ourselves. How strong is our army? What resources do we have to fight? And then the competition, our enemy. How strong are they? What resources do they have? And so, we'll decide strategy on the basis of the company, or in that case, the country. But in business, the company and the competitor.

Sun Tzu, a Chinese general/philosopher who wrote one of the most influential books on war called "The Art of War," wanted to get in behind the mechanics of war to talk more about the philosophy. And I think that's why it's had the staying power it has because nothing about the world really has changed from that deeper philosophical sense. Even though the world has evolved, the equipment used in war, the philosophy, I think, behind it has remained constant for many centuries.

One thing Sun Tzu said was: "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." Having the unnecessary carnage in war, the actual killing of people or in business, the unnecessary destruction of kind of monetary assets in people's lives and careers—that's not the object of war. The object of war should be to try and make sure that you have an outcome that is sustainable.

If the object of war is to crush somebody else in a way that makes them hate you forever, guess what they'll do? They will hate you forever. So you express your business strategy in a way that causes potential competitors to say, "I'm gonna compete elsewhere," and hopefully they'll succeed elsewhere, right? That's the perfect strategy, so that you won't get into wars; they won't attack you.

"There's no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare." On what playing field, or if you like military strategy, battlefield, are you going to play and where not? And then on that playing field, how are you going to be the best? How are you going to win? You only want to engage in competitions where you can create a win without creating a loser who will keep on attacking you.

Ask yourself, "What can I uniquely do for a particular set of customers?" "Would-be competitors will choose to do something else because I do that thing better." That is not a prolonged war. If you do it right, it's a prolonged peace.

"When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard." You either have to absolutely eliminate, entirely, a competitor, or give it a chance to find another place to play. You can create for them an escape road to a different part of the market, a different segment. But you've shown them that in your target customer set, you are the best, and they can't just come into that place and do whatever they want.

"Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley." A challenge in the modern corporation, right? 'Cause many of them get very big. And you can think of your employees as pawns in a bigger game, and if you lose a few, so be it. A challenge for anybody who's a military commander or a business leader is that they pay very little attention to what you say. They pay attention like a hawk to what you do.

So if you say, "Oh, we're a family, you're like my son," and "Oh, we...