Dead generals are not always the best business advisers

FT.com

November 12, 2013 6:41 pm

By Lawrence Freedman

Companies should treat military metaphors with care, writes Lawrence Freedman

©The Art Archive

‘Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli’ (17th century) by Antonio Maria Crespi

Military metaphors come naturally to the world of business, with “price wars”, “takeover battles” and “marketing campaigns”. Anyone who has browsed in an airport bookshop will be familiar with titles about instilling the warrior spirit in senior management. Many hold up military commanders as models. In addition to the obvious candidates – Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon – such characters as Attila the Hun are touted as exemplars for the modern manager.

But these heroes rarely offer guidance of enduring relevance. The lessons drawn from their experiences often do no more than show that long ago there was an intuitive understanding of what we might now call best practice. Attila, for example, adapted to adversity, learnt from mistakes and was a listening, caring boss to his subordinate chieftains.

Jack Welch of General Electric is one chief executive who spoke about the influence of the military classics on his strategy. When shutting down the company’s planning department in the early 1980s, he cited the warning of Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz that successful strategy could not be formulaic; as well as Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder’s observation that no plan survives contact with the enemy. The latter presented strategy as a “system of expediencies”, and Mr Welch agreed that, instead of sticking doggedly to a complicated plan, it was better to be ready to respond to environmental changes.

Did Mr Welch need these authorities to start questioning the value of a large central planning department? When he took over at GE, such departments were already being challenged as cumbersome and inflexible, setting unrealistic targets based on unreliable information. Their deficiencies had been illuminated during the 1960s in a rare case of military strategy shaped by business experience. When Robert McNamara became defence secretary to US President John Kennedy, the former president of Ford Motor Company expected everything to be quantified at the Pentagon’s civilian centre. This came up against the Pentagon’s organisational politics and contributed to the calamitous conduct of the Vietnam war.

In the reaction against centralised planning there was a turn to Chinese sage Sun Tzu, whose influence was felt in politics as well as business and the military. His book, The Art of War, dating from about 500BC and aphoristic in style, could be applied to a range of situations and was popularised by fictional villain Gordon Gekko, from the movie Wall Street, and Tony Soprano, the television mobster who argued Sun Tzu was a better strategist than Machiavelli. The basic message was that a more indirect approach would be more effective than a frontal assault – surprising or deceiving rivals, and doing the opposite of what they expect. Sun Tzu put a premium on intelligence and imagination, encouraging the idea that success could come by outwitting opponents.

It is, however, difficult to rely on always being the smartest. Those who do so are likely to come unstuck when they encounter an even cleverer opponent.

This is not to say that a reading of military strategy classics cannot be rewarding for business. Clausewitz’s sense of the interaction of politics and passion in war, or his concept of “friction” warning of the unexpected obstacles that frustrate even the best plans, have a lasting relevance. But the differences between business and war are profound, which is why business should treat military metaphors with care – especially if they are taken too seriously, turning every conflict into some pitiless, zero-sum fight to the finish.

Of course, that is something any modern general must also avoid. They must be aware of the limits of brute force and the fact that they are coping with complex situations far removed from the decisive battles of Clausewitz’s time. In that respect, today’s strategists from the military and business can still learn from one another. Good strategies will be based not on a textbook, ancient or modern, but on a cool assessment of the challenges and opportunities faced, in the light of available resources and possible partners.

The writer is professor of war studies at King’s College London and the author of ‘Strategy: A History’