With special guest Paul Kan
War is the ultimate form of competition, pitting two adversaries against each other in mortal combat. History has provided many motivations for waging war, such as control over resources and as acts of revenge for political wrongs. But while the nature of war – its brutality and violence – has remained a constant through time, its character has evolved with new technologies, methods, and changing public and political attitudes. War is also often used as a metaphor for other forms of competition, such as business where gaining market domination often means “vanquishing” a competing firm or industry.
This month’s episode examines war and how some of the strategies related to it have been applied to other organizational and management contexts. We read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, an ancient text that emerged from the Warring States period that lasted from the 5th through 3rd centuries B.C. and engulfed most of modern mainland China. How to win and how to avoid total defeat were important lessons captured succinctly in The Art of War. Its thirteen brief chapters address matters from practical battle tactics on the use of spies or fire to the relationship between the military and its “sovereign” – the king or the state – with insights for modern-day studies in civil-military relations. The Art of War is also famous for espousing the uses of “indirect” methods to achieve one’s goals. For example, whereas other war theorists suggest attacking an opponent’s strength to destroy the enemy, Sun Tzu advocated attacking vulnerabilities as it reduced the risk of wasting one’s own forces, which would leave them open to attack from another adversary.
Thus, one can think of The Art of War as a treatise on surviving in an environment of war and all its complexity. Its plasticity and analytical style are probably why the text has been adapted to other forms of competition. There are adaptations oriented toward business and management, for promoting feminism, even for improving one’s own personal relationships! But are such adaptations appropriate? And who gets to decide that? Thinking about these questions allow us to reflect more broadly on the uses (and misuses?) of classical texts and authorship that we have touched on in previous episodes.
Helping us to understand Sun Tzu, The Art of War, and its historical context is our special guest Paul Kan, a professor from the U.S. Army War College who teaches theories of warfare and national security studies.
Read with us:
We read two different translations:
Giles, L. (1910). Sun Tzu on the art of war. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Griffith, S. B. (1963). Sun Tzu: The art of war. London: Oxford University Press.
To Learn More:
Rauch, M., & Ansari, S. (2021). Waging War from Remote Cubicles: How Workers Cope with Technologies That Disrupt the Meaning and Morality of Their Work. Organization Science.
Other Talking About Organizations Podcast episodes referenced:
Episode 3. Theory of Human Motivation — Abraham Maslov
Episode 55. Group Dynamics and Foundations of Organizational Change — Kurt Lewin
Title Image Credit: Painting of the Battle of Oroi-Jalatu, circa 1758, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).
