Comments
on Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, edited
by Dick Cooledge, Comptche Press, 1927.
Sun Tzu: “These
operational tactics must not be deluged if you use them. But the most important tactic is to think.
The general who wins does just that: he thinks about the war, the battle to
come, the reasons for doing and not doing battle, and then he plans. Those who
make many calculations beforehand tend to win. Those who only make a few
calculations lose. If you want to pick winners and losers, watch who is making
calculations and what they are calculating.”
Raven: “Birds are simple creatures. We want food, a safe and
comfortable place to sleep, our families and our friends. We watch you from the
trees and laugh. Caw. Caw. Caw,”
Poor Richard: “There is an art to negotiation, but anyone can learn
it. The trick is to be reasonable and
fair. Now in business, fair is always a set of economic terms and reasonable is
the range within which a deal can be done. What the judicious merchant does is
figure out what seems fair to him and to the other guy. That’s the reasonable
range. Then this merchant figures out the mid-point and how much beyond that
they can settle. That’s fair. Hopefully it works for the other party too. If it
doesn’t, the merchant knows she can still get a deal, but she have to give to
get it. Ahh, yes, the lesson; the lesson is this: Well-grounded calculations
are the judicious means for being known fair and reasonable because you are
just that, fair and reasonable.”
© Phyl Speser, January 16, 2013