Sun Tzu and The Art of War for Contractors & Careers

Success in all aspects of life has to do with how effectively you align your opportunities and resources.

D. Brown Management Profile Picture
D. Brown Management
February 2, 2020 2 minute read
Share

Take on too much and you spread yourself too thin, introducing excessive stress, risk, and potentially failing in an unrecoverable way.  

Taking on too little will leave you with wasted potential and won’t create the right levels of stress that develops character, relationships, and capabilities.    

Taking on the wrong things won’t be fulfilling in the long-term, so it isn’t truly sustainable.

Quote: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy or yourself, you will succumb in every battle. Sun Tzu

PLANNING STARTS A GOOD INVENTORY

Know yourself deeply, including what you are really good at and what you aren’t so great at. Know what you love doing and what you don’t like doing.   

Understand your customer’s true needs, both stated and unstated.  

Know comparatively how you and your competition fulfill those needs. Be very honest with yourself about how your respective strengths and weaknesses are evaluated by the customer.

Related Training
Winston Churchill - Success, Failure and Enthusiasm
When there are no clear answers, it is critical to experiment, learn, and rapidly scale up those things that work. "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
Related Article
Degree of Discretionary Time with Growth in Role Levels and Business Size
The degree of discretionary time that someone has in doing their job grows with their role level - for example from crafts person to VP of Operations. For similar roles, that time decreases with company growth as the job roles become more tightly defined.
Related Article
8 Stages of Personal and Team Growth
Exploration expands our context. Learning and deliberate practice builds and demonstrates our individual productivity. Develop team productivity with four levels of leveraging yourself through others. Take an inventory of where you and your team are at.
Related Article