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“The nature of
strategy consists of always having, even with a weaker army (company),
more forces at the point of attack than the enemy.”
Napoleon Bonaparte |
I had an interesting conversation last week
with a European CEO of a mid-cap manufacturing company. He had been mentioned
in the Wall Street Journal wherein he described a convoluted recovery scheme
that the editorial tone suggested was both brash and nouveau. But we thought
we recognized it for what it was: brilliant and old. Since he reads this
column I asked him if my hunch was right and he laughed and reported that,
indeed, it was. What follows is the military history. It’s not hard to see
the application to modern business as a way to provoke your competition into
making foolish, exploitable moves. It’s all about control.
The tactic’s first recorded use was by Genghis Khan and his
Mongol general Subedei Bahadur in 1241. Like Genghis Kahn, Subedei was a
brilliant and innovative strategist. He sent four distinct troop columns
into Europe. One headed directly for Poland and Germany which attracted all
the European military forces in that direction. This is exactly what Subedei
wanted. The other three columns entered Hungary in an indistinct fashion
attacking various targets all while focusing on keeping the Austrian forces
from combining with the Hungarian. That was the actual agenda-keep the
forces apart. When the time was right the three Mongol columns then
magically combined into one large force and shattered the unsupported
Hungarian forces.
It was brilliant back then. And remains so. The key in all
competition (war, business, etc.) is to avoid or mitigate your competition’s
strengths and exploit their weaknesses*. The Mongol Subedei could quickly
combine forces to focus on exploitable weakness in a way a large, unwieldy
force couldn’t. War is largely about real estate so this is a great
advantage. By having multiple forces the Mongol could control the movements
of his enemy by forcing them to spread out to defend multiple targets. This
numerically weakened the individual targets’ defenses making it easier (less
costly) to attack them. Prevent your numerically superior competition from
concentrating its forces against you. Then divide and conquer them. We
covered this in the piece about Southwest Airlines and elsewhere.
If you are skillful enough you can force your opponent to
protect itself so thinly that they abandon their position in order to
survive elsewhere. This is war in the best Sun Tzu tradition of winning
without fighting. This tactic could, for example, lead to a favorable
corporate merger when previously none was possible.
Napoleon advanced the tactic using what has been called
the “weighted net.” Napoleon would send out numerous columns where, like a
waving net, they would focus on various threats and speedily envelope the
useful or dangerous ones. Then move on. This confused his enemies who would
try to coalesce for an offensive attack on something that looked weak, but
would suddenly find Napoleon’s forces massing more efficiently, and then
attacking with superior strength, before the enemy could effectively
combine. In effect Napoleon would direct his forces to act like an octopus
with waving arms. When one arm sensed something of value the other arms
would suddenly be brought into play to deal with the opportunity. When
finished they would separate to look for new opportunities.
So, what’s the point? The point is that even a large,
well-financed competitor can’t optimally protect all of its markets, all of
the time. By dividing your forces you can confuse your target and cause them
to think your approach is coming from a different direction with a different
intent, hiding your actual objective. Done correctly this can cause your
(hopefully) unenlightened competition to expend resources to protect the
incorrect target (think product or service), weakening support for your
actual objective. This opens the door for you. Never forget that frontal
attacks against hardened targets are seldom successful and always expensive.
Think about it…
Note: This is a variation of the feint, which we have discussed in previous
editions. It’s another method of controlling your enemy/competition through
an elaborate form of deception. Never forget that used intelligently
deception makes war (competition) less costly and reduces risk. All the
Great Generals know this.
* * *
*This is why you have to spend part of every day asking
yourself, “Has our competition’s strengths changed and are there any new
weaknesses we can now exploit?” Your stakeholders EXPECT you to think this
way.
The phrase “plan with branches” was coined in the late eighteenth century by
French strategist Pierre de Bourcet
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Copyright
© 2003