October 15, 2015
Kevin O’Leary, businessman and star of ABC-TV’s “Shark Tank” has been quoted as saying: “Business is war. I go out there, I want to kill the competitors. I want to make their lives miserable. I want to steal their market share. I want them to fear me and I want everyone on my team thinking we’re going to win.”
Whether you own or manage a small or large business, the parallels between fighting a war and successfully running a business are strikingly similar.
As a matter of fact, the comparison between the two are so much alike that not only has today’s business environment seen ideas formulate from military strategies, but many successful entrepreneurs will admit they have specifically drawn concepts and ideas from a 2,500-year-old book to sharpen their skills – Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.”
While you’ve probably heard of this book, have you ever considered reading it? If you are a business owner and you have not, you should. Why? In today’s ever changing business environment, you need to be prepared to combat your competition and because we are now in a global economy where your competition is not just across the street and around the corner, but around the world, you need to be able to not just survive, but thrive.
It was philosopher Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, who said “Knowledge is power.” Four hundred years later that quote has withstood the test of time.
The reality is most of you won’t take the time to read the book. Not because you don’t want to, but because you simply don’t have the luxury of time because you are too busy fighting that 24/7/365 battle. If you can read the book, great! If not, a quick Google search of “art of war and business” will yield hundreds of results.
Weeding through these articles can be both monotonous and tiring, so here are three recommended pieces to help you cut through the redundant BS and hopefully help you take away something that can be applied to your business.
1. “Six Principles of Sun Tzu & the Art of Business” by Mark McNeilly. [Click Here to Read]
2. “Why Wall Street Loves ‘The Art of War’ – A 13 Point Plan To Mastering Business Strategy” by Elish Bul-Godley. [Click Here to Read]
3. “Business is War! Sun Tzu and the Art of War” by Jerry Musnitsky. [Click Here to Read]
Happy reading!