Advice from history's strategic thinkers

Citation

McNeilly, M. (2005), "Advice from history's strategic thinkers", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 33 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/sl.2005.26133bae.001

Advice from history's strategic thinkers

Advice from history’s strategic thinkers

Mark McNeillyBusiness strategist for IBM. An amateur military historian and former infantry officer, he is the author of Sun Tzu and the Art of Business: Six Strategic Principles for Managers (Oxford University Press). His e-mail address is mcneilly1@earthlink.net and his web site is www.suntzu1.com

The Art of the Strategist: 10 Essential Principles for Leading Your Company to VictoryWilliam A. Cohen, PhD, Major General, USAFR, Retired

Imagine if you could bring together the greatest strategic thinkers from history and get them to agree on the best principles for running a business. That is the premise for William A. Cohen’s book The Art of the Strategist: 10 Essential Principles for Leading Your Company to Victory.”

Cohen derives his ten principles by sifting through and synthesizing the strategic writings of many ancient and modern military strategists (including Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Jomini) into ten strategic tenets. These principles are:

1. 1.

   commit fully to a definite objective;

2. 2.

   seize the initiative and keep it up;

3. 3.

   economize to mass your resources;

4. 4.

   use strategic positioning;

5. 5.

   do the unexpected;

6. 6.

   keep things simple;

7. 7.

   prepare multiple, simultaneous alternatives;

8. 8.

   take the indirect route to the objective;

9. 9.

   practice timing and sequencing; and

10. 10.

    exploit your success.

While Cohen believes there is much that one can learn from military history and strategy, he does not naively think one can make a direct one-to-one transfer from that field to business. As he states, “So while a book intended to unearth the essence of strategy for business should, of necessity, include an analysis of military strategy, it must be far broader. It must also include a thorough examination of strategy in many different disciplines … .” Thus Cohen uses business, military, and political examples to illuminate each principle. Although I did see what I believed were flaws in a few of the examples utilized, Cohen’s approach makes the book an interesting and easy read. The soundness of the ten principles and the organization of the book make it flow nicely as well. Cohen also adds commentary and insight sidebars that delve deeper into specific topics within a chapter and he sums up each chapter with a “strategist’s log”, the purpose of which is to show how to put that chapter’s principle into practice. Cohen ends the book with a section on putting all 10 principles into action. Although it included some good advice on implementation, I believe this section would have been stronger had he laid out a specific methodology the reader could employ.

It is Cohen’s belief that the principles he has synthesized are not only essential but universal, believing they apply not only to business but to any competitive situation. He says, “Over the centuries, they have worked time and again for those strategists who recognized their power. By mastering them and learning to apply them in all competitive situations you encounter, you will find that they work for you too.”

Cohen, a retired Air Force General and a Professor of Business Administration at Touro University International, is currently the president of the Institute of Leader Arts. He is the author of three other books including The New Art of the Leader, and The Wisdom of the Generals.