If you have taken any business classes, work for a corporation, or enjoy strategy games, you probably have heard of Sun Tzu. This little treatise of approximately sixty-two-hundred characters has been studied, taught in war college, business classes for many centuries.
Sun Tzu’s writing is a good asset for business because it lays a foundation a business can follow to thrive and survive in their appropriate market(s). Sun Tzu’s, “Art Of War” provides a focusing lense leading to success for any size business. It has been said that Sun Tzu and Niccolò Machiavelli are all the only business partners one needs for business success.
Unfortunately these business partners have found themselves being used in areas where they are ineffective and self defeating. In arenas of friendship and cooperative work towards a common goal, Sun Tzu and Machiavelli ruin more friendships and joint efforts than they help.
Some people in todays overly competitive society have discarded appropriate and accepted forms of personal interaction and instead create for themselves a world of thinly disguised guerilla warfare and subterfuge.
Competition holds a valid place in business. Healthy competition between areas of a business helps competing groups reach a higher level than would be possible without competition. Competition among employees in the same work group, where some are waging war against their coworkers to promote themselves is destructive for the group and the parent company.
Utilizing Sun Tzu and Machiavelli for whole life management is not only destructive, it is dangerous. It destroys friendships, relationships, and families, leaving one isolated and alone. Family life and friendships are just that. Friendship and family life is a place where one can go to leaving the outside world behind.
Life is a series of battles and struggle, but as with an army, there has to be a place where one can go and relax and recuperate. A place where one can be themselves without worrying beyond good manners about what is happening around them.
For anyone living a life comprised of total personal war and continuos competition I suggest a new direction. I propose, “The Art Of Friendship”. Create a life where the Art of Friendship can survive and thrive makes everyone more effective in other areas of their life.
The Art of Friendship is a way of dealing with people around you who share your interests, either business or personal and benefits everyone by making everyone more effective and prosperous. Instead of planning assassinations of coworkers or friends who’s interests are a little too close to our own, look for ways to work together and share in the glow of excellence instead of the the false glow of simply winning.
Allowing those around you to work jointly towards a common goal, is not only more personally satisfying, it is powerful. Instead of working as a single entity, having more people to work together towards the same goal increases the chance of success, and reduces failure from something not considered by an individual.
These days to many people see themselves as a lone warrior out battling the forces against them. What they are really doing is creating is a vacuum, where everything that could be accomplished with help can not be done because no one is willing to risk helping.
Same as a single stick being easily broken, whereas a tied bundle of sticks can not, working together in friendship and trust creates environments where everyone wins more than any individual can alone.
Business in many respects is a game of chess, consisting of moves and counter moves. Although chess is played by one individual competing against a second individual, the individual pieces on the chess board are acting as a team with a common goal. The complete team of chess pieces wins the chess match, not an individual chess piece. Try working with your coworkers and friends instead of trying to better them, and see what you can conquer as a complete functioning team, and not a single chess piece.
