Q #214: What are some of the most interesting facts about Sun Tzu and The Art of War?

The Art of War

I am greatly indebted to Thomas Huynh who founded Sonshi.com in 1999 for the information he has accumulated. He was named among BusinessWeek magazine’s “Top 12 Most Engaged Reader-Contributors of 2008″ and is a co-author of The Art of War—Spirituality for Conflict with the editors of Sonshi.com. Here are his responses to four frequently asked questions about Sun Tzu and the book that many scholars believe he wrote.

Q: Why pick a Japanese word for Sun Tzu, a Chinese word?

Huynh: Like many Sun Tzu enthusiasts, we are intrigued by early Japanese culture. Our fascination was further fueled when we learned Sun Tzu was first introduced to Japan as early as 400 A.D. What we found was nothing less than Japan’s earnest efforts in applying Sun Tzu to warfare; the samurai would peruse its contents before each battle. From Takeda Shingen to Minamoto Yoshitsune, they were among the most diligent practitioners of the book’s concepts. Thus, it was appropriate to use the Japanese word for Sun Tzu: Sonshi. A user of Sonshi.com — of any nationality — would likewise want to learn Sun Tzu with the same degree of intensity.

Q: Was the original title just Sun Tzu and The Art of War subtitle was added much later?

Huynh: Yes, that is correct. It was customary at the time of Sun Tzu’s writing to title a work the same as its author. The subtitle was probably added later to provide a summary description of the work. This is why you will find us use “Sun Tzu” and “The Art of War” interchangeably. It is both the name of the author and the name of his only book (known to us). In ancient China, people did not write on paper as we do now; they used bamboo, wood, or silk. Thus, a “book” was oftentimes a roll of bamboo strips.

Q: Did Sun Tzu (Sun Wu) actually write The Art of War?

Huynh: This is a debatable issue. Some scholars believe it indeed was written by Sun Wu himself. However, others believe it was written by followers within the Sun Wu circle. Based on all the evidence we believe the work originally was written by Sun Wu, but later transcribers inserted words like “Sun-tzu said:” and “Ping Fa” (Art of War). After all, the text was highly regarded from day one from someone they obviously respected. The tactics presented could only have been written by somebody with deep knowledge in military strategy and not merely by followers. In addition, the writing also flows as if only one person wrote it.

Q: Many people have been led to believe that Sun Tzu beheaded a king’s favorite concubine to get the attention of the rest. Where is this incident in your account of Sun Tzu.

Huynh: We don’t have this story in our translation because it’s not in the The Art of War. The story is actually in Ssu-ma Chien’s “Shih Chi,” mentioning Sun Tzu and this particular disciplinary action. “The Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yueh” also tells this story except it states Sun Tzu was a native of Wu (not Chi). Sun Tzu training 180 court women to march like soldiers is quite an interesting incident, and thus is often inserted in many Sun Tzu books. Be advised some scholars view the story as apocryphal.

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In Q&A #213, I provide an introduction to Thomas Cleary and a link to a rare and highly enlightening interview of him. You are urged to check out the resources provided at Sonshi.com. Here is a link to it:

http://sonshi.com/index.html

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them.

Book Review: Reality Check

Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
Guy Kawasaki
Portfolio/The Penguin Group (2008)

Having read all and then reviewed most of Guy Kawasaki’s eight previously published books, I was especially eager to read this one because it was rumored to provide everything he wishes he had known (but most of which he didn’t) when he embarked on his career in business (counting diamonds a fine-jewelry manufacturer called Nova Stylings) while at work on an MBA degree at UCLA. (He had already earned an undergraduate degree at Stanford.) Kawasaki later went to work for an educational software company called EduWare Services. However, Peachtree Software acquired the company and wanted him to move to Atlanta. “I don’t think so. I can’t live in a city where people call sushi ‘bait.’ Luckily, my Stanford roommate, Mike Boich, got me a job at Apple. When I saw what a Macintosh could do, the clouds parted and the angels started singing. For four years I evangelized Macintosh to software and hardware developers and led the charge against world-wide domination by IBM.” By now, presumably, he was accumulating a wealth of real-world experience in leadership and management and well as knowledge about marketing, sales, finance, strategic planning, problem-solving, resource allocation, and customer relations.

Reality Check exceeded my expectations. The twelve (12) “realities” that Kawasaki rigorously examines, in separate chapters devoted to each, include Starting Chapters 1-5), Raising Money (Chapters 6-15), Planning and Executing (Chapters 16-24), Innovating (Chapters 25-31), Marketing (Chapters 32-37), Selling and Evangelizing (Chapters 38-43), Communicating (Chapters 44-52), Beguiling (Chapters 53-63), Competing (Chapters 64-67), Hiring and Firing (Chapters 68-78), Working (Chapters 79-89 followed by a “Timeout”), and Doing Good (Chapters 90-94 followed by a “Conclusion.” Yes, that is correct: This book has 94 chapters plus a “Timeout” and a “Conclusion” provided within (count ‘em) 461 pages plus (thankfully) a comprehensive Index.

As is also true of Kawasaki’s eight other books, the tone is informal, conversational, and at times confrontational; also, the pace is frenetic and the writing style has Snap! Crackle! and Pop! Most important to me, the content is more abundant and of a higher quality than in any other of his previously published books.

Readers will welcome the use of bold face to highlight key points. This device will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review of those key points later. I especially appreciate the inclusion of several interviews throughout the lively narrative. They include those of Fred Greguras on key legal issues in raising funds (Pages 51-59), Chip and Dan Heath on why only a few innovations “stick” and most don’t (Pages 130-138), Kathleen Gasperini on marketing to young people (Pages 168-175), Garr Reynolds on mastering the “Presentation Zen” approach (Pages 209-214), Robert Cialdini on the art and science of effective persuasion (Pages 243-250, and Libby Sartain shares her perspectives on the recruiting process (Pages 314-317). Note the variety of subjects covered during Kawasaki’s interviews. They correctly suggest the scope and diversity of his interests.

What sets this business book apart from almost others I have read in recent years is the extent to which it provides (quoting Kawasaki in the Introduction) “hardcore information to hardcore people who want to kick ass.” The focus is almost entirely on how to create and then sustain an organization whose people “make the world a better place because of it.” Presumably Kawasaki agrees with Thomas Edison: “Vision without execution is hallucination.” If not you, who? If not now, when?

Is Everybody Tired, or is it Just Me? — Energy and Time Management in the Midst of Challenging Times

Recently, Slate.com ran a test on who is better informed:  newspaper readers exclusively or internet readers exclusively, in its News Junkie Smackdown. The winner seemed to be neither, with both sides wanting and missing the other side’s sources.  But as I read the multi-entry series, I realized how tired I felt just from the task of reading the news.  I read the news constantly – as do so many of us these days.  And I feel that if I miss a story, then somehow I have fallen behind in the universe.  Keeping up is wearing me out.

There are other tasks that are wearing us out – I think we are a tired people, collectively.  Many of my friends now work as “independents,” perpetually scrambling for the next financial possibility, feeling the pressure constantly.  Those who work for large organizations are feeling the pressure also.  The next round of layoffs seems to be right around the corner.  (How many of us personally know someone who has been laid off?)  The strain of the economy seems to fill many with a deepening, underlying, constant uncertainty – about nearly everything.  And such uncertainty, such insecurity, is very, very tiring.  Not to mention that financial pressures are equally very, very tiring, and many face these on a regular basis.

Two books to help you find your energy and maintain balance in your life...

Are there books to help?  I think so.  Two that I have read, neither “new’ but both still valuable, are The Power of Full Engagement and Getting Things Done:  The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.  Of course, everyone knows about David Allen’s best seller.  An entire industry has been created providing GTD aps for the iPhonie, following Allen’s principles.  He is so right that any thing that clutters the life or the mind is burden producing and burden sustaining.  Getting it off of the mind and into a place where it can be retrieved when needed is critical to one’s sanity, and energy level.  Here are a few key quotes:

• Almost everyone I encounter these days feels he or she has too much to handle and not enough time to get it all done.
• In the old days, you knew what work had to be done – you could see it.  It was clear when the work was finished, or not finished.  Now, for many of us, there are no edges to most of our projects.  Most people I know have at least half a dozen things they’re trying to achieve right now, and even if they had the rest of their lives to try, they wouldn’t be able to finish these to perfection.
• “This constant, unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy.”  Kerry Gleeson.
• We all seem to be starved for a win.

The other book, The Power of Full Engagement:  Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, may be less well known, but it is a great and valuable companion volume for Getting Things Done.  Consider these quotes:

• We live in digital time.  Our rhythms are rushed, rapid fire and relentless, our days carved up into bits and bytes.  We celebrate breadth rather than depth, quick reaction more than considered reflection.  We skim across the surface, alighting for brief moments at dozens of destinations but rarely remaining for long at any one.  We race through our lives without pausing to consider who we really want to be or where we really want to go.  We’re wired up but we’re melting down.    We survive on too little sleep, wolf down fast foods on the run, fuel up with coffee, and cool down with alcohol and sleeping pills.  Faced with relentless demands at work…, we return home feeling exhausted and often experience our families not as a source of joy and renewal, but as one more demand in an already overburdened life.
We walk around with day planners and to-do lists; Palm Pilots and BlackBerries, instant pagers and pop-up reminders – all designed to help us manage our time better.  We take pride in our ability to multitask, and we wear our willingness to put in long hours as a badge of honor.  The term 24/7 describes a world in which work never ends.
• Fatigue has a cascade effect – fatigue leads to negative emotions leads to muscular tension leads to lack of focus/concentration.
• We need energy to perform, and recovery is more than the absence of work.

I realize that we are too busy to read these books about dealing with the stress of being too busy.  But these quotes should whet your appetite while reminding us all that the problem of fatigue is real.  It will take a lot of effort to become effortless in our work and life and emotional balance.

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• You can order synopses of my presentations for both Getting Things Done and The Power of Full Engagement, at our companion web site, 15 Minute Business Books.

Interview: William A. Cohen

Cohen is founder and president of The Institute of Leader Arts. He is also a retired major general from the U.S. Air Force Reserve. After graduating from West Point, Cohen flew 174 combat missions in A-26 aircraft in the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross with three oak leaf clusters, and the Air Medal with eleven oak leaf clusters. He has written 53 books, including The Stuff of Heroes, The New Art of Leadership and The Art of the Strategist. His latest is A Class with Drucker, based on his graduate study under Peter Drucker’s supervision and his personal friendship with him. He also has an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago as well as M.A, and Ph.D. degrees from Claremont Graduate University.

Here is a brief excerpt from my interview of Cohen:

Morris: How would you characterize Drucker’s teaching style?

Cohen: Mostly he lectured in what is probably the traditional European style, except that he used no notes whatsoever. Occasionally he would ask questions, and he would also welcome them, but most of his answers were not a few short comments. He used stories to illustrate his points as in his lectures. However, you had to listen closely as his stories in response to a question because, at first, the stories seemed to have no relevance whatsoever. This would lead to another point that seemed to have no relevance either and this could go on and on. However, if you stayed with him, sometimes for as long as an hour, he would suddenly tie everything together. It was only then that you realized that he felt that you needed to hear everything in order to understand fully the point he was making. He gave no tests, but he had us write a number of short papers for a course. He graded every single one of these papers himself, never with any help from graduate assistants.

Morris: At that time, graduate students and their professors (including Drucker) took dinner breaks and gathered at a cash bar in the Faculty Club, then dined together before resuming classes. There must have been some especially lively conversations.

Cohen: This was always true. However, it wasn’t a cash bar. The drinks and the meals were free. Unfortunately this practice had to be abandoned, probably because of the potential liability of the university in case of an accident as tired executives, who had had one or two drinks, drove home after a difficult day both at the office and in the classroom. However, I never knew anyone to abuse this and these conversations were useful with all of our professors, not just Peter. However I think he enjoyed them more than most and several of “the lost lessons” in my book came from these conversations. Peter knew who he was and what he could do. He was always observing, analyzing, and drawing conclusions. He considered himself a constant student. A classmate once asked him how he could make so many accurate predictions about the business world. “I listen,” he responded. And then with a typical, humorous, but no doubt accurate Drucker comment, he added: “To myself.”

If you wish to read the complete interview, please contact me at interllect@mindspring.com.