Concentration of force is one of the great principals of successful battle. Alexander of Macedon (a.k.a. Alexander the Great) and Napoleon both employed it. It’s also very effective in business—and can be savagely effective for “the little guy” with limited resources. That David fella knew just what to do when Goliath came along—aim for the weakness. Herb Kelleher did the same thing with Southwest Airlines.

The key is to look for weakness in your opponent’s strengths then engineer a relative superiority (e.g. Southwest Airlines). You then apply the strength against your competitor’s weakness (making sure it’s a TRUE weakness, and not just clever bait—ouch!). Napoleon was brilliant in his ability to actually create the weakness in the enemy’s line using skillful maneuvering, not necessarily superior firepower (e.g. using cleverness instead of committing capital). Then he would drive through. It was first employed by Alexander the Great 2,000 years before who used it to repeatedly defeat the decidedly less clever Persian leader Darius.

We use this around here, of course. We're a small search company, but we studied, then specialized in “high-speed/high-impact search” (e.g. clients come to us to quickly improve a high-potential capability, often by having us use our competitor intelligence skills to first identify, and then dutifully extract, valuable talent from a worrisome competitor). This focus, this concentration of energy, has given us a tremendous advantage over our entrenched, slow-moving competition.

By thinking like this, smart small-guys like Southwest Airlines and Parcon Research have been happily poking javelins at the rear end of big guys for thousands of years.

Think about it…