Corporate Warfare ala Clauswitz: Some Key Points

Corporate Warfare is the utilization of one firm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to exploit those of other firms.

Strategic Concepts of Corporate Warfare according to von Clauswitz

War (as opposed to strategy or tactics) is neither an art nor a science

• The object of science is knowledge and certainty
• The object of art is creative ability

Therefore,

• Clauswitz refers to war as a form of “social intercourse”
• Possessing bases in both science and art
• He likens it to commerce or litigation, but more usually to politics
• Interpretation: Corporate warfare is extremely multidisciplinary

Although,

• In both art and science, the actor is working on inanimate matter
• In business, politics, and war the actor's will is directed at an animate object that not only reacts but takes independent actions of its own.

Thus,

• Corporate Warfare is thus permeated by "intelligent forces."
• Or, "an act of force to compel our [opposition[ to do our will."

Corporate warfare is, then, a contest between independent wills

von Clauswitz described war in two contexts, laying a theoretical and applied frameworks.

"Absolute War" – [Corporate] War[fare] in it’s purest form.

• A philosophical abstraction
• War in a "pure" form
• Unrestrained by intelligent forces or by the frictional effects of time, space, and human nature
• maximum effort
• Uter overthrow of the enemy

"Real war"—[Corporate] War[fare] in it’s applied form.

• The gritty reality of warfare as we actually experience it
• Constrained by the ever-present social, political, industrial, and market-based context, by human nature, and by the restrictions imposed by time and space

Real War ≠ Absolute War

The spectrum of war does not run smoothly from "absolute" to that of "limited” warfare

• Real war occurs along this spectrum, the “force spectrum”
• From the mere threat of force
• To conflicts which are
• Unlimited in the sense that at least one of the antagonists is unwilling to accept any outcome other than the complete overthrow of his adversary.

Interpretation: As are the factors that comprise the winning of a war are many, as are the conditions under which a war is won. A corporate leader in corporate warfare must broaden what they consider winning and losing, and define it clearly.

• The conduct of corporate warfare has to vary in accordance with its commercial purposes
• A party resorting to corporate warfare should do so with a clear idea as to what it means to accomplish and how it intends to proceed toward that goal

"[Corporate] War [fare] is a continuation of [corporate policy] by other means."

The practice of business is the ability to organize resources to conduct commerce.

Whereas,

Commerce: The buying and selling of goods, especially on a large scale, as between cities or nations.

Manage:

• To direct or control the use of; handle; to exert control over
• To direct the affairs or interests of:
• To succeed in accomplishing or achieving, especially with difficulty; arrange

Therefore,

The key job of managers is to maximize the value of the firm

• Improve the situation of the firm which they represent.

Corporate Warfare is a method of—not a substitute for—conducting commerce.

• An expression or method of commerce, but
• Commerce is the interplay of conflicting forces, not the execution of one-sided policy initiatives.

In corporate warfare, commerce and management remain in all their complexity, with the added element of “marketplace violence”.

Marketplace violence: The irrational and non-rational forces that affect and often drive commerce have the same impact on corporate warfare.

"Strategy" is therefore the collective use of tactics for the purpose of corporate warfare or "the [commercial] purpose of the warfare being waged

• No strategic decision is ever final; it can always be reversed in another round of struggle.
• Further, a war often takes on a dynamic beyond the intentions of those who launched it.

The conduct of corporate warfare always rests on the variable energies, abilities, interests, and character of the stakeholders of the firm in unpredictable proportions.

With Self-Discipline Most Anything Is Possible

He’s been called “The American Lion;” a man that stands apart from others in his era as being someone who transformed himself and the time in which he lived. In the late 17^TH century he saw the need to modernize the American Navy. While mourning his first wife he learned to rope and ride in the badlands of what is now North Dakota. During the Spanish-American War he dropped everything and went out west to recruit a ragtag group of cavalrymen from myriad walks of life to fight in Cuba under General Leonard Wood, becoming nothing short of a war hero. This man who had started as a frail boy with physical ailments grew to be some of the finest stock this country has offered. Becoming President of the United States at 43 years old, Theodore Roosevelt is in the elite club of Presidents to win the Nobel Prize.

Years ago I recall watching television; there were a series of commercials discussing virtues that people should have and selling them on the “why.” One featured a judge that said that discipline is the everyday price we pay in place of paying the price of regret. We bathe each day instead of regretting being ridiculed by those around us for smelling and/or looking like we have just woken up; we exercise and eat right so that we won’t become overweight and will feel better; we respect others so that they will, in turn, respect us; we follow the law because we would regret being punished for not obeying it (or, a person is just of virtuous character and believes that the rule of law is there for a reason). Discipline is not just important, it is essential for the leader to practice.

Imagine that you are a member of a military unit in a leadership role: Be that as an officer or a non-commissioned officer. With subordinate troops in your charge, in the face of imminent danger do you confide in your troops your fears, thus validating their own and possibly fomenting more, or do you practice proper discipline and do your duty as their leader and an officer of the public and the commander-in-chief that you serve? The answer is obvious in the context of discipline.

In today’s “instant gratification” society the practice of self-discipline is instead often traded for impulsive behaviors that, instead of leading to success, lead to feeling good now. Proper self-discipline can be what separates a slob from a person that looks and plays the part of the successful individual.

“The one quality which sets one man apart from another—the key which lifts one to every aspiration while others are caught up in the mire of mediocrity—is not talent, formal education, nor intellectual brightness—it is self-discipline…With self-discipline, all things are possible. Without it, even the simplest goal can seem like the impossible dream.”

I couldn’t have articulated it better myself.