The 33 Strategies of War (18 page)

In those two decades, the Red Sox players fought among themselves, fell into factions, whined and complained at any perceived slight, and won just one pennant. The Yankees were cohesive and spirited; they won thirteen pennants and ten World Series. The lesson is simple: do not confuse a chummy, clublike atmosphere with team spirit and cohesion. Coddling your soldiers and acting as if everyone were equal will ruin discipline and promote the creation of factions. Victory will forge stronger bonds than superficial friendliness, and victory comes from discipline, training, and ruthlessly high standards.

Finally, you need to structure your group according to your soldiers' strengths and weaknesses, to their social circumstances. To do that you must be attuned to the human side of your troops; you must understand them, and the spirit of the times, inside and out.

In a real sense, maximum disorder was our equilibrium.

T. E. L
AWRENCE
, 1885-1935

During the American Civil War, the Union generals struggled with the ragtag nature of their army. Unlike the disciplined, well-trained troops of the Confederacy, many Northern soldiers had been forcibly conscripted at the last minute; they were pioneers, rugged frontiersmen, and they were fiercely independent. Some generals tried desperately to instill discipline, and mostly they failed. Others just paid attention to map strategy, while their armies continued to perform badly.

General William Tecumseh Sherman had a different solution: he changed his organization to suit the personalities of his men. He created a more democratic army, encouraged initiative in his officers, let them dress as they saw fit; he loosened outward discipline to foster morale and group spirit. Like frontiersmen generally, his soldiers were restless and nomadic, so he exploited their mobility and kept his army in perpetual motion, always marching faster than his enemies could. Of all the Union armies, Sherman's were the most feared and performed the best.

Like Sherman, do not struggle with your soldiers' idiosyncrasies, but rather turn them into a virtue, a way to increase your potential force. Be creative with the group's structure, keeping your mind as fluid and adaptable as the army you lead.

Authority: Thus the army...moves for advantage, and changes through segmenting and reuniting. Thus its speed is like the wind, its slowness like the forest; its invasion and plundering like a fire.... It is as difficult to know as the darkness; in movement it is like thunder.

--The Art of War,
Sun-tzu, (fourth century
B.C.
)

REVERSAL

Since the structure of your army has to be suited to the people who compose it, the rule of decentralization is flexible: some people respond better to rigid authority. Even if you run a looser organization, there may be times when you will have to tighten it and give your officers less freedom. Wise generals set nothing in stone, always retaining the ability to reorganize their army to fit the times and their changing needs.

The secret to motivating people and maintaining their morale is to get them to think less about themselves and more about the group. Involve them in a cause, a crusade against a hated enemy. Make them see their survival as tied to the success of the army as a whole. In a group in which people have truly bonded, moods and emotions are so contagious that it becomes easy to infect your troops with enthusiasm. Lead from the front: let your soldiers see you in the trenches, making sacrifices for the cause. That will fill them with the desire to emulate and please you. Make both rewards and punishments rare but meaningful. Remember: a motivated army can work wonders, making up for any lack of material resources.

THE ART OF MAN MANAGEMENT

We humans are selfish by nature. Our first thoughts in any situation revolve around our own interests: How will this affect
me
? How will it help
me
? At the same time, by necessity, we try to disguise our selfishness, making our motives look altruistic or disinterested. Our inveterate selfishness and our ability to disguise it are problems for you as a leader. You may think that the people working for you are genuinely enthusiastic and concerned--that is what they say, that is what their actions suggest. Then slowly you see signs that this person or that is using his or her position in the group to advance purely personal interests. One day you wake up to find yourself leading an army of selfish, conniving individuals.

You can do nothing with an army that is an amalgam of a hundred people here, a hundred people there, and so on. What can be achieved with four thousand men, united and standing shoulder to shoulder, you cannot do with forty or even four hundred thousand men who are divided and pulled this way and that by internal conflicts....

R
ULES OF
W
AR AND
B
RAVERY
, M
UBARAKSHAH
, P
ERSIA
, T
HIRTEENTH
C
ENTURY

That is when you start thinking about morale--about finding a way to motivate your troops and forge them into a group. Perhaps you try artfully to praise people, to offer them the possibility of reward--only to find you have spoiled them, strengthening their selfishness. Perhaps you try punishments and discipline--only to make them resentful and defensive. Perhaps you try to fire them up with speeches and group activities--but people are cynical nowadays; they will see right through you.

The problem is not what you are doing but the fact that it comes late. You have begun to think about morale only after it has become an issue, not before. That is your mistake. Learn from history's great motivators and military leaders: the way to get soldiers to work together and maintain morale is to make them feel part of a group that is fighting for a worthy cause. That distracts them from their own interests and satisfies their human need to feel part of something bigger than they are. The more they think of the group, the less they think of themselves. They soon begin to link their own success to the group's; their own interests and the larger interests coincide. In this kind of army, people know that selfish behavior will disgrace them in the eyes of their companions. They become attuned to a kind of group conscience.

Morale is contagious: put people in a cohesive, animated group and they naturally catch that spirit. If they rebel or revert to selfish behavior, they are easily isolated. You must establish this dynamic the minute you become the group's leader; it can only come from the top--that is, from you.

The ability to create the right group dynamic, to maintain the collective spirit, is known in military language as "man management." History's great generals--Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Napoleon--were all masters of the art, which for military men is more than simply important: in battle it can be the deciding issue, a matter of life and death. In war, Napoleon once said, "The moral is to the physical as three to one." He meant that his troops' fighting spirit was crucial in the outcome of the battle: with motivated soldiers he could beat an army three times the size of his own.

To create the best group dynamic and prevent destructive morale problems, follow these eight crucial steps culled from the writings and experiences of the masters of the art. It is important to follow as many of the steps as possible; none is less important than any other.

Step 1: Unite your troops around a cause. Make them fight for an idea.
Now more than ever, people have a hunger to believe in something. They feel an emptiness, which, left alone, they might try to fill with drugs or spiritual fads, but you can take advantage of it by channeling it into a cause you can convince them is worth fighting for. Bring people together around a cause and you create a motivated force.

What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted! Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just, And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

K
ING
H
ENRY
V
, W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE
, 1564-1616

There are always moments when the commander's place is not back with his staff but up with the troops. It is sheer nonsense to say that maintenance of the men's morale is the job of the battalion commander alone. The higher the rank, the greater the effect of the example. The men tend to feel no kind of contact with a commander who, they know, is sitting somewhere in headquarters. What they want is what might be termed a physical contact with him. In moments of panic, fatigue, or disorganization, or when something out of the ordinary has to be demanded from them, the personal example of the commander works wonders, especially if has had the wit to create some sort of legend around himself.

F
IELD
M
ARSHAL
E
RWIN
R
OMMEL
, 1891-1944

The cause can be anything you wish, but you should represent it as progressive: it fits the times, it is on the side of the future, so it is destined to succeed. If necessary, you can give it a veneer of spirituality. It is best to have some kind of enemy to hate--an enemy can help a group to define itself in opposition. Ignore this step and you are left with an army of mercenaries. You will deserve the fate that usually awaits such armies.

Step 2: Keep their bellies full.
People cannot stay motivated if their material needs go unmet. If they feel exploited in any way, their natural selfishness will come to the surface and they will begin to peel off from the group. Use a cause--something abstract or spiritual--to bring them together, but meet their material needs. You do not have to spoil them by overpaying them; a paternalistic feeling that they are being taken care of, that you are thinking of their comfort, is more important. Attending to their physical needs will make it easier to ask more of them when the time comes.

Step 3: Lead from the front.
The enthusiasm with which people join a cause inevitably wanes. One thing that speeds up its loss, and that produces discontent, is the feeling that the leaders do not practice what they preach. Right from the beginning, your troops must see you leading from the front, sharing their dangers and sacrifices--taking the cause as seriously as they do. Instead of trying to push them from behind, make them run to keep up with you.

Step 4: Concentrate their
ch'i
.
There is a Chinese belief in an energy called ch'i, which dwells in all living things. All groups have their own level of ch'i, physical and psychological. A leader must understand this energy and know how to manipulate it.

Idleness has a terrible effect on ch'i. When soldiers are not working, their spirits lower. Doubts creep in, and selfish interests take over. Similarly, being on the defensive, always waiting and reacting to what the enemy dishes out, will also lower ch'i. So keep your soldiers busy, acting for a purpose, moving in a direction. Do not make them wait for the next attack; propelling them forward will excite them and make them hungry for battle. Aggressive action concentrates ch'i, and concentrated ch'i is full of latent force.

During the Spring and Autumn era, the state of Qi was invaded by the states of Jin and Yan. At first the invaders overcame the military forces of Qi. One of the eminent nobles of the court of Qi recommended the martialist Tian Rangju to the lord of Qi. To this man, later called Sima Rangju, is attributed the famous military handbook "Sima's Art of War."...The lord of Qi then summoned Rangju to discuss military matters with him. The lord was very pleased with what Rangju had to say, and he made him a general, appointing him to lead an army to resist the aggression of the forces of Yan and Jin. Rangju said, "I am lowly in social status, yet the lord has promoted me from the ranks and placed me above even the grandees. The soldiers are not yet loyal to me, and the common people are not familiar with me; as a man of little account, my authority is slight. I request one of your favorite ministers, someone honored by the state, to be overseer of the army." The lord acceded to this request and appointed a nobleman to be the overseer. Rangju took his leave, arranging to meet the nobleman at the military headquarters at noon the following day. Then Rangju hastened back to set up a sundial and a water-clock to await the new overseer. Now this new overseer was a proud and haughty aristocrat, and he imagined that as overseer he was leading his own army. Because of his pride and arrogance, he did not see any need to hurry, in spite of his promise with Rangju the martial master. His relatives and close associates gave him a farewell party, and he stayed to drink with them. At noon the next day, the new overseer had not arrived at headquarters. Rangju took down the sundial and emptied the water-clock. He assembled the troops and informed them of the agreement with the new overseer. That evening the nobleman finally arrived. Rangju said to him, "Why are you late?" He said, "My relatives, who are grandees, gave me a farewell party, so I stayed for that." Rangju said, "On the day a military leader receives his orders, he forgets about his home; when a promise is made in the face of battle, one forgets his family; when the war drums sound, one forgets his own body. Now hostile states have invaded our territory; the state is in an uproar; the soldiers are exposed at the borders; the lord cannot rest or enjoy his food; the lives of the common people all depend on you--how can you talk about farewell parties?" Rangju then summoned the officer in charge of military discipline and asked him, "According to military law, what happens to someone who arrives later than an appointed time?" The officer replied, "He is supposed to be decapitated." Terrified, the aristocrat had a messenger rush back to report this to the lord and beseech him for help. But the haughty nobleman was executed before the messenger even returned, and his execution was announced to the army. The soldiers all shook with fear. Eventually the lord sent an emissary with a letter pardoning the nobleman, who was, after all, the new overseer of the army. The emissary galloped right into camp on horseback with the lord's message. Rangju said, "When a general is in the field, there are orders he doesn't take from the ruler." He also said to the disciplinary officer, "It is a rule that there shall be no galloping through camp, yet now the emissary has done just that. What should be done with him?" The officer said, "He should be executed." The emissary was petrified, but Rangju said, "It is not proper to kill an emissary of the lord," and had two of the emissary's attendants executed in his stead. This too was announced to the army. Rangju sent the emissary back to report to the lord, and then he set out with the army. When the soldiers made camp, Rangju personally oversaw the digging of wells, construction of stoves, preparation of food and drink, and care of the sick. He shared all of the supplies of the leadership with the soldiers, personally eating the same rations as they. He was especially kind to the weary and weakened. After three days, Rangju called the troops to order. Even those who were ill wanted to go along, eager to go into battle for Rangju. When the armies of Jin and Yan heard about this, they withdrew from the state of Qi. Now Rangju led his troops to chase them down and strike them. Eventually he recovered lost territory and returned with the army victorious.

M
ASTERING THE
A
RT OF
W
AR
: Z
HUGE
L
IANG'S AND
L
IU
J
I'S
C
OMMENTARIES ON THE CLASSIC BY
S
UN-TZU
,
TRANSLATED BY
T
HOMAS
C
LEARY
, 1989

Step 5: Play to their emotions.
The best way to motivate people is not through reason but through emotion. Humans, however, are naturally defensive, and if you begin with an appeal to their emotions--some histrionic harangue--they will see you as manipulative and will recoil. An emotional appeal needs a setup: lower their defenses, and make them bond as a group, by putting on a show, entertaining them, telling a story. Now they have less control over their emotions and you can approach them more directly, moving them easily from laughter to anger or hatred. Masters of man management have a sense of drama: they know when and how to hit their soldiers in the gut.

Step 6: Mix harshness and kindness.
The key to man management is a balance of punishment and reward. Too many rewards will spoil your soldiers and make them take you for granted; too much punishment will destroy their morale. You need to hit the right balance. Make your kindness rare and even an occasional warm comment or generous act will be powerfully meaningful. Anger and punishment should be equally rare; instead your harshness should take the form of setting very high standards that few can reach. Make your soldiers compete to please you. Make them struggle to see less harshness and more kindness.