Unity

I am currently reading the Six Strategies of Jiang Tai Gong. He is the advisor to the King Wen and Wu of the Zhou Dynasty. He helped the two kings to overthrow the Shang Dynasty and established the Zhou Dynasty.

There is a paragraph that mentioned the importance of unity. With unity, then the troops can be used to achieve the objectives of war, because a disunited troops will not act as a strong unit but act as several small units that would be easily overcome.

In Sun Zi Art of War, there is mentioned of unity as well. The people of the nation is united behind the ruler and the troops move in one single unit. Many of the troops deployment and movement strategies requires troops to move in a single unit. For example when attacking, it is required that the troops concentrate on the weakness of the enemy. When feigning weakness, the whole troops must work together to make sure the enemy will perceive them in disarray which would require that the troops work together as a unit.

So how do we ensure unity in business, well there are many ways. One is to improve communication between everyone in the company. One is to flatten the structure, but that may result in a need for change in business strategy and culture. Because corporate structure can affect your execution of business strategy and corporate culture.

But communication is the one and only method to ensure unity. Communication is both and art and a science that will take years to master even if it is corporate style. Other things that can ensure unity is during goal setting time within the departments. And again the values, vision and mission of the company will also keep the company united as one.

As I mentioned before, in the book "Built to Last", the visionary companies focus on getting the people that will fit into the values, mission and vision of the company first before capabilities are considered. Thus, again shows the importance of having unity in the companies.

So as we can see, there are a lot of business applications we can find from these Art of War from Ancient Chinese Military Strategists. Cheers!