I recently had a long stretch of airplane time and had a chance to get a bit of reading done. In my queue I had the good fortune of pulling out The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene (a follow-up work to his previous book, The 48 Laws of Power). Both are outstanding books that provide an approachable means to equate history and to business and if you have not read them, I give them both an enthusiastic two thumbs-up.
The purpose of this blog post is not to plug Greene’s book, but to call out a specific chapter. In the very first chapter, “Declare War on Your Enemies – The Polarity Strategy”, Greene got me thinking. He states, “Without a sense of polarity, without an enemy to react against, you are as lost as the Greek mercenaries (an example cited earlier in the chapter)…Your enemy is the polar star that guides you. Given that direction, you can enter battle.” This chapter really made me think about our industry’s current fixation of blame on the economy and whether or not we have the right enemy in our sights.
In my 20+ years in business, I have not managed through such a daily barrage of bad news, had to cut costs so dramatically. or have not had as many excuses as we unfortunately have today.
The truth is that we are indeed in a cyclical business and that the economy is hurting all of our companies. However, in times like these, we should remain even more conscious of the truisms of which that Greene speaks. The economy is not our enemy. We should all pick our enemies wisely because the right choices will make us sharper and better. Choosing the economy as your enemy however, is an unwinnable battle.
VP Communications and Chief Marketing Officer
Con-way, Inc.
Chairman
TMCA
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