The business world is a constant battle, one that often pits competitors against each other in the fight to control an industry.
We draw here on The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene, who analysed the tactics of history’s greatest military leaders and adapted those strategies so they can be used professionally. Whether you want to climb the corporate ladder or you’re a business owner competing in an industry, you can get a lot out of these strategies.
Here is a summary of 29 military strategies that will help you win in business.
See also: 3 chess secrets applied to business, from a chess grandmaster and entrepreneur
1. Declare war on your enemies
On the road to success, many people will hide their true intentions and pretend to be on your side. Work out who stands for what kind of power, and use it to your advantage to motivate yourself.
2. Do not fight the last war
Learn from your failures, but don’t let them weigh you down. Savour your victories, but don’t let them make you complacent.
3. Amid the turmoil of events, keep your presence of mind
Unexpected challenges and setbacks will tempt you to respond with anger or anxiety, which will only create more trouble for yourself. Learn not to impose your emotions on reality and to see things objectively, so that you can react with a calm mind.
4. Create a sense of urgency and desperation
Even if you’re optimistic, ambitious and self-assured, you’ll never succeed if nothing forces you into action. You need to set deadlines that push you forward towards concrete goals.
Your best ideas will never come to anything if you don’t have a team to help you make them a reality.
5. Avoid the snares of groupthink
Your team won’t follow you if you make the shared mission all about yourself, but it’s also dangerous to hand decision-making over to a chaotic collective. Don’t secure respect only by enforcing strict rules: you should also reward your team for its victories.
6. Segment your forces
Avoid micromanagement, which can frustrate your team members and slow everyone down. Instead, create independent groups that can carry out tasks on their own.
7. Transform your war into a crusade
The way to keep people motivated is to align their personal interests with those of the group. Find a good cause that everyone will want to fight for. It’s important to know which battles are worth fighting and which are worth avoiding. Then you’ll be ready for any counterattack you need to make once your enemy has worn himself out.
8. Pick your battles carefully
You won’t always have the time, energy or resources to take on the competition head-on. You need to keep the long term in mind.
9. Turn the tables
Sometimes the best thing is to let your opponents make the first move. Wait for them to make a bad decision out of impatience, and then move in to bring them down.
10. Create a threatening presence
Deter your opponents from engaging you directly, avoiding as many battles as possible, but be formidable in the battles you do choose to fight.
11. Trade space for time
If an opponent attacks in a fit of recklessness, it may be best not to fight back, even if they do some damage. Your refusal will infuriate them and make them commit errors.
At other times, after careful planning, the best move is to surprise and overwhelm the enemy.
12. Lose battles but win the war
People will inevitably get the better of you from time to time. Keep a cool head, stay focused on big long-term goals and let your opponents enjoy their small victories.
13. Know your enemy
Pay less attention to the competition’s team as a whole and study its leader instead. Avoid projecting your own beliefs onto that person. Instead, watch how he or she thinks and behaves.
14. Overwhelm resistance with speed and suddenness
Take the time you need to prepare a thorough offensive, then catch your opponent off guard. Strike again before they have a chance to react.
15. Control the dynamic
The best way to manipulate your opponents’ emotions is to define the nature of your relationship with them. If they are especially arrogant, give them the impression that they are in control.
16. Hit them where it hurts
Every successful person or organisation has a source of power. It might be money, popularity or a winning strategy. Find their weak spot and hit it with everything you’ve got.
17. Expose and attack your opponent’s soft flank
Draw your competitors’ attention by attacking them head-on, and then lead them to where they are weakest.
18. Envelop the enemy
When you’re ready to defeat your opponent, keep up the pressure from every side. That way they will be forced to focus their attention on you, growing more and more worried.
19. Manoeuvre them into weakness
Create a dilemma for your enemy, so that the only way they can respond to your move is with a decision that will hurt them in some way.
20. Negotiate while advancing
Never forget that in a negotiation the other side is trying to get as much as it possibly can out of the confrontation. Before and during negotiations, keep pressing forward so that your opponent plays on your terms.
21. Know how to end things
When you go into battle, you’re putting your reputation on the line. Never put yourself in a position of certain defeat, and if your enemy wins, don’t belittle them, because you may turn them into a tough enemy who can strike back at you in the future. You’ll have to use unorthodox strategies to finish off a formidable enemy. You can even resort to slippery, devious tactics to beat them.
22. Weave a seamless blend of fact and fiction
Set a trap for your opponents by playing with their expectations, so that they lower their guard and deceive themselves.
23. Take the line of least expectation
Doing something extraordinary against an enemy will only work if you seemed modest and ordinary beforehand.
24. Occupy the moral high ground
You can weaken your opponents’ base of support by making them look sinister, even if they aren’t. Tie your goals to a good cause so that the public wants to move forward with you.
25. Give your rivals enough rope to hang themselves
When someone you know is quietly plotting to destroy you, hold back from attacking them. Instead, share just enough information with them to sow doubt and insecurity, and they will destroy themselves.
26. Penetrate their minds
If you want to influence people, it’s best not to say things in an overly personal way. Instead, put things in such a way that people reach the conclusion on their own.
27. Destroy from within
If you come up against an opponent you could never defeat directly, it may be worth befriending them as a first step. Then recruit their colleagues to help you, and in that way find a means of destroying them from within.
28. Dominate while seeming to submit
You won’t get people to do their best work for you through aggression. Smile and be pleasant, so that they get their work done.
29. Sow panic through acts of terror
The best way to approach a battle with a giant enemy is to dramatise a move in such a way that it terrifies them, convincing them that you’re much stronger than you really are.
Robert Greene is also the author of The 48 Laws of Power and Mastery.
Further reading
Featured image: Louis Albert Guislain Bacler d'Albe, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
