"At the heart of every organization is a self reaching
out to new possibilities
the
expression of a self that has realized it cannot succeed alone."
--Meg Wheatly and Myron Kellner-Rogers
Those who adopt the convenient metaphors of war for applying
to business have no business being in business! The customer is not a battleground
to be fought over, but a valuable (and valued) human being. Even if the customer is
another corporation, that corporation is but a collection of human beings; name a
corporation without people, please.
Those who quote Sun-Tzu have likely never read him (much less
learned how to pronounce his name!). The ancient general posits war as the act of
failure, an instrument of diplomacy. Imagine moving garrisons of the leader's sales
people into place in a show a force, as the United Nations did in the recent (1998)
showdown with Iraq. The entire idea is absurd.
And motivating people with images of "kill the
competition" is the tool of the unimaginative: Killing the competition leaves a
vacuum. But, the "win the business over the competition" by providing more
perceived customer value is a worthy objective, and honorable outcome. For if that
competitor is operating from the same nobility, you'll improve, they'll improve, and the
customer will benefit from the race to out-satisfy.
Go back to the formative days of the corporation. At
some point, in that distant past, someone turned to another and said, in effect, "I
can see an opportunity that so huge, we can create something valuable and
lasting. Won't you pursue it with me?" When that second person agrees, we
now have two people who are devoted to the execution of a dream...and that is the essence
of every spiritual quest since the dawn of man. And, those two recruit
another to the vision, and the quest expands.
It is folly for such a small venture to succumb to the
delusions of competence to assert, "We'll kill the competition!" Rather,
it's a quest (or battle, if you insist) for survival. Then thrival. And
then the original dreamers and visionaries tend to replace themselves with
"professional management." In even worse cases, they arrive at the belief
that they're personally responsible for all the successes to-date.
It is (some of those) professional managers who value
"objectivity" over feeling, and entreprenuers who've lost the essential humility
and humanity that brought them into the marketplace in the first place. These are
the ones who adopt the morally bankrupt metaphors of "business as war."
And it utterly debases the significance of the wonderful achievement of conceiving of a
business, giving it life, and breathing life into it's early adulthood.
Lose the metaphors of "war." Look for richer
metaphors: Maybe its organic (a garden, or a forest), or an Olympic event (a
marathon, or a relay race). The world is richer than war. War is the last
resort of bullies.
