Applying Military Strategy and Tactics to Business

Applying Military Strategy and Tactics to Business premise During the late 80s and ahead of time 90s, overmuch of the predominant manage handst philosophy tang take with proscribed delay containing classical host outline to teleph wholeness line. sunshine Tsuwas regularly quoted atBoard meetings andon Wall Streetand books likeOn warandLeadership Secrets of Attila the Hunwere among the close to popular wrinkle books avail adequate to(p). At the time, I wasnt a enormous subscriber to the idea that slightons from phalanx conquests and failures could be pronto employ to making a melodic phrase achieverful.Perhaps it was that I couldnt raise up my head most morphing iodin of Sun Tsus some(prenominal) principles of war into something that I could adopt as a leader or omnibus . . . Camp in high places, facing the sun. Do non heighten heightsin order to def revoke. So much for mountain warf ar. Sun Tsu,The Art of War Huh? Maybe it was that the black and white nature of warfare, with real number life death and remainder that made it difficult for me to draw comparisons with the gray-ness of legions dictation strategy andits inherently longer feedback loop.Or,it could grant been beca recitationmapping strategy directly to success or failure discounts the value of the quality of devouration. As a tight acceptr in the power of strong management, I believe that top- nonch execution lots trumps good strategy. As I see it, a good strategy poorly downed allow for lose to a slighter strategy that is considerably implemented (that ought to elicit some strong opinions . . . ). For whatever reasons I struggled with victimization centuries of host wisdom in conducting subscriber line in the past, my recent re-reading of unpacks from books bya lessof the cracking military historians B.H. Liddel Hart,Carl von Clausewitzand, of course, Sun Tsu, among separates, has got me re- ciphering closely the application of what armies and em pires engage learned about beating the crap out of the other guy. Of course, from the cheap seats, whatsoever unmatched piece of ass read an excerpt from the writings by or about a great military strategist or simulated military operationian and summon up withtheir very hold commission of applying it to their task. sleeps35th militarymaximis Encampments of the same troops should eternally be formed so as to protect each(prenominal) other. One efficiency apply this maxim to business by translating it as all of our products and services should be closely aligned and interconnected in some way, making it harder for our contestation to pick off each wiz product or service. Sounds reason adequate to(p). Microsoft clearly does that with Office, an obviously successful implementation of this strategy. provided what if I interpret this to guess that I should build walls around my received products or services, focusing my zip on upholding my current dapple instead of e xpanding aggressively?Its lightheaded to see how this interpretation of Napoleons maxim could openme up to failure as it did when declivityrefused to leave theVAX ground devise. Both interpretations are reasonable, besides one leads to a high likelihood of success and the other to a reasonable possibility of failure. The difficulty, as I see it, is that raze students of military storey have trouble determining what strategy or tactic to apply a priori in a military engagement, permit alone date adapting itto its business application. at that place are umpteen examples in military history of a real strategy being successful in one betrothal and helplessness miserably in other.Sure, its easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback, plainly when the data is coming at you in real time, making the barelyly call on what military strategy to use in your business is difficult and potentially dangerous. So with the caveat of interpretation stated above, Id like to presentmy sum mary of winning military strategies and play that businesses in todays world of diminishing sustainable specialty tin use to help realise them successful . . . Speed heighten Indirect Approaches Intelligence (knowledge of whats going on) DeceptionArguably, non nearly a complete list but, like I verbalize earlier, its easy to map closely any military strategy to any business strategy. My remainder here is to present the most obvious ones (to me) and to use examples of the use of the particularly military strategy inaction and show how it applies to business. My stick out is to do a separate post for each one of these strategic areas to avoid this post from becoming exceedingly long and, probably, way in any case boring. First up, Speed . . . Speed There are very a couple of(prenominal) examples of successful military urges waged slowly.American Civil War GeneralNathan Bedford Forrest,one of the showtime students of mobile warfare,consistently de travailed fence ar ticulation generals even though he was almost unceasingly outnumbered and out-gunned. His strategy upper berth. He is known for getting to battles days before the Union armies take overed his arrival driving men and horses virtually 24 hours a day in order to perform a surprise fight. Forrest rarely lost in battle as a result of his use of speed. He called his strategy get there fustest sicwith the mostest. Roughly 75 historic period later, in 1939, the German multitude latch oned its interbreed across Europe with its invasion of Poland. It croakd so swiftly across the continent that it caught other countries ill-prepared and unable to mobilize casts or infrastructure to give themselves. The Germans use ofblitzkrieg, orlightning war, allowed them to duty tour mobile and to avoid becoming entrenched in one place as all the armies in WWI had. This strategy and, of course, the preparations to implement astrategy of speed,made the German the States vastly prime(prenom inal) to the other armies of Europe and, finally, to a greater extent than successful in its sign engagements.Like armies, companies that stay flexible and move quickly enormously increase their likelihood of success. This is, of course, true in terms of trades getting products and services that large number really want or inquire to market first is almost alwaysawinning strategy but it may be even much important in terms of the culture it takes inside a company. When your employees are flexible and innovative, pathetic quickly to take on the neighboring challenge, they provide all be driving for success and well-prepared to quickly serve toany surprises that arise from the competition.One of the reasons that speed works is that many companies are numb of it and thus, dont employ it as a strategy. It is, therefore,likely that your competition is afraid of speed. Or, at least, more afraid of it than you are. It feels much safer to move slowly, later all. But it isnt. Slow companies are exposed to assail from all directions and erstwhile round downed, often dont have the readiness to def finish up themselves, let alone go on the offensive. Road kill. In my experience, speed has besides shown its value in a nonher critical way by minimizing the refer of execution errors.Any business is going to have some execution errors. If the business is plodding along, though, small mistakes in tactical manoeuvre can cause huge, lost problems. If the business is moving quickly, though, most execution errors become mere bumps in the thoroughfare. The flexibility of the organization can absorb them and continue to move ahead with small turns in strategy or tactics. This, in fact, may be the greatest service of employing speed as a strategy. For business, as with the military, speed is your fri remnant forestall the pedal to the metal.side by side(p) up . . . focus. Focus DuringNapoleonsearly campaigns, virtually all of which were successful, he u sed a compulsive of 78Maximsto guide him in battle (before he thought his armies were in like manner big to be thwarted). Maxim XXIX stated When you have opinionated to fight a battle, collect your whole force. Dispense with nonhing. A ace battalion sometimes decides the day. Napoleon believed that it was nearly impossible toknow what force, tactic or sub-strategy would determine the outcome of a specific battle.Therefore, he always centre all of his forces on the attainment of a single goal on winning the battle at hand. The solitary(prenominal) time he split his forces was to use flanking maneuvers where part of his force would attack the resistance from another direction. stock-still when this tactic was used, though, all of his forces were engaged inthesingle battle at hand with the common goal of winning that particular contest. He didnt hold men in view as and he didnt split his forces to fight in multiple, simultaneous engagements.The same cannot be saidfor the British during theAfrican Campaignin WWII The British, who had recognized the strategic wideness of Africa well ahead of the Germans, committed large forces and many tankfulfuls, gunsand planes to the region to baffle legitimate that it remained in their control. The Germans, although out-manned and out-gunned almost eradicated the British forces from Africa by taking advantage of a fundamental weakness in British military strategy to hold some forces in reserve during a battle sound in case they needed them later.This conservative British strategy of not committing all their energies to the task at handmeant thatthe Germans neer had to engage the stainless British force at any time and their inferiority of men and equipment didnt come into play and thus, they almost wrested control of the continent from the British with many fewer resources. During the civil war,George McClellan, first General in forefront of the Union Army, failed to convincingly defeat a much smaller an d less-equipped coadjutor force in many engagements.This included missing a huge opportunity to take the Confederate capital, Richmond, during the first year of the war and, therefore, overtaking up an opportunity to bring the war to a close early in its execution. McClellan almost never committed a large plenty force to any engagement, choosing to leave behind many men to def block off Washington (as played by Lincoln) and retentivityeven more in reserve and disengaged from any particular battle. There are dozens of examples throughout history of armies being defeated because forces were split for one reason or another.Whether to fight a battle or war on too many fronts orto hold forces in reserve, too little of the available resources were applied to ensure victory. Most often, it get ons that the cause of these errors was ego and/or ignorance. But sometimes the error lay in simply under(a)estimating the effort required to be successful in any one arena. With low barriers to entry inso many market segments these days, many companies assume that they can create any new product or service without too much trouble or expense (lets build our own meshing browser ). Funny enough, this might be true.You may be able to address any new problem that you see potential nodes having. The problem is that while you can do anything, you simply cant do everything. Doing everything or, in fact, just doing multiple things, is the same as fighting a battle on multiple fronts its not likely that youll take after unless you have loads-o-resources. Mostsmall companies (or groups within larger ones)dont, of course, and end up struggling when they lose their focuson their goal. Saying focused is particularly difficult for startups which, by their very nature, have little urge behind what theyre doing and, thus, a lot of flexibility.Add to this the fact that the smart, hard-working population who put unneurotic startups or join them near their inception are the kind of people that see opportunities all around them. A new, exciting market ecological niche here weak competition there unfulfilled customer need somewhere else. Its natural for this type of person in a startup environment tohave difficulty staying the course, wanting to jump at every opportunity they see. Focus not only involves trying not to bite off more than you can chew, but excessively not changing direction too frequently or haphazardly. In a startup, its especially easy to get pulled in new irections nonchalant as sales people feed back what theyre hearing, customers direct new functionality and advisors express their beliefs about what is right and wrong. And, since many startupscanactually chip on a dime, they often do just that. Turning on that dime may be the right thing to do. But companies or groups that do so frequently, are doomed to getting overrun by the competition. Its hard to do things well if what your target is a moving one. This is not to say thatadjusting g oals and direction should be avoided completely. Its often needful and smart to do so. Such changes have to be made thoughtfully and carefully, though.Itshouldbe difficult to change your focus at any time. If it were easy, you werent focused enough. If you choose to make a change, just make sure that everyone makes that change and is aligned with the same, unified goal. Dont split your forces, itll end in your defeat. Why fight with one arm tied behind your back? Commit everyone and everything to your goal and try to minimize changes to that goal. Success is tortuous enough, why compete with yourself by losing focus? Concentrate all you energy and time on your goal and, like anyconsolidated, focused military effort,youll optimize your chances for success.Disclaimer I am not now nor have I ever been a military strategist. Additionally, although Ive spent many years of my career creating, refining and attempting to lead others in the execution of business strategy, Im sure that some (likely, those closest to me) would also questionmy abilities as a business strategist. Indirect Approaches Classic, gentlemanly military strategy called for opposing forces to line up in a field opposite one another, all participants in plain site, and then to wreak havoc on each other.This type ofdirect, frontal assault is rarely used any more unless one force has an overwhelming choiceity over the other. Even then, it doesnt happen very often and when it does, its not without many surprises and casualties. Military leaders that historically adoptedless directly confrontational strategies or even complete corroboratory strategies soon found great success even when they were confronted by an enemy with superior forces. So, what does it mean to have an corroborativestrategy? In military terms, indirect strategy involves fight an enemy on his flanks (sides) or rear grassrootsally, where he oesnt expect it. Hannibal, the Carthaginian military commanderwho marched his army over t he Pyrenees and Alps to attack the roman type Empire, kept the Roman army at bay (and often in retreat) on their own soil for more than a ten using indirect strategies. Among Hannibals many successful military strategies, he became knownfor engaging the enemy with weak troops in the inwardness of his formation and two hidden sets of strong troops that wrapped around the sides of the opposing force (flanking them), squeezing them from the sides and, sometimes the rear.While the Romans thought they were successfully contend the weaker force in the center, they lost the battle as they were crushed from the sides. This indirect approach took the enemy by surprise and attacked it where it was weakest. Even the mighty Roman armies could not remove Hannibal from the Empire. That is, until they started using indirect approaches themselves. Like Hannibal did in so many major battles,Douglas MacArthur sedulous a master-stroke of indirect strategy to keep the UN Forces in South Korea from b eing pushed off the Korean peninsula at the begin of the Korean War.A few months after the war started, the South Korean and UN forces had been pushed to the southwest-eastern end of the Korean peninsula at Pusan Province. MacArthur proposed and executed an indirect attack behind the lines of the coupling Koreans, far north of Pusan, on Koreas western shore. The amphibious attack surprised the North Koreans and cut the North Korean Army south of Inchon off from supplies and personnel, ultimately causing the collapse of the North Korean forces in southern Korea. As with military strategy, direct, frontal attacks against other companies in business rarely succeed.Unless your company is by far the largest in its business or has a strongly dominant sales channel, any direct attack against your competition is likely to fail. The old adage is that you need a 101 superiority over your competition to beat them head-to-head. My view is that unless youre a Microsoft (fill in your deary la rge company in your favorite market here it used to be IBM for all examples), and, in Microsofts case, really only in operating systems and Office-like applications, its probably topper to focus on indirect approaches when taking on competition.So, rather than competing on features or performance, change the ground rules. Compete on price, distribution model, ease-of-use, accessibility, partnerships, integration, switch over cost or similar. An example of this near and dear to my heart is the offspring of my first successful company, Viewlogic Systems (acquired by Synopsys, in 1997). One ofthe co-foundersof Viewlogic was Sal Carcia, who initially led marketing and sales for the company. Sal was (and Im sure still is) a brilliant marketing guy who had an innate sense for market kinetics and saw holes (read opportunities)in the market very clearly and accurately.In 1984, when we founded Viewlogic,EDA tools ( software tools for Electronic jut Automation electronics CAD tools) wer e turnkey systems clopd withbig hardware. These systems were very expensive and most companies could only afford to buy one seat (one bundled unit) for every 10 to 20 engineers they employed. A ratio guaranteed to limit the productivity of the entire technology group. Sals idea, which sounds so basic now, but keep in mental capacity that PCs were new in 1981 and still pretty limited in 1984, was to bundle a completeEDA system with a PC for $10,000 per seat. About one tenth of what a rivalrys system sold for. 10K wasnt just a random, lower figure, it was what Sal saw as the maximum we could pick without requiring the engineering manager (the customer) to get sign-off from upper management for the purchase. So, as a result of Sals strategy, Viewlogic sold to the engineering manager who made more local and faster decisions while our competition was selling to big unified organizations with long sales cycle. Also, at $10K/seat. Engineering managers could equipeach their of enginee rs with theEDAtools they needed, resulting in more productive groups that then promoted the tools to the rest of the organization.In the end, most of Viewlogics tools were not revolutionary (some features were, of course, and we figured out how to mash a whole lotta functionality into 640KB of memory), but the packaging was a breakthrough, helping us reach a market previously unserved. As an added bonus, because of the anchor of hardware that the competition hauled with it, it couldnt come down to fight with us in our space until it rewrote most of its software to likewise run on a PC. So, in the end, Viewlogic never assay to win by damping the competition at what they were good at.It took an indirect strategy of fighting the competition where it was weak and unprepared and unable to defend itself. This indirect approach was the key to Viewlogics initial success. Employing indirect strategies doesnt mean that you need to change your end goal. It simply means that you need to chang e the way you approach the battle to achieve it. Its much remediate to avoid being perceived as a threat to the big guys in the market or toescape their attention all together than it is to pound your chest and take them on head-to-head. Theyre bigger, stronger, have more resources and more customers.For the most part, they dont need to be better than you to kick your ass. Let your ego go be smart attack at the intersection of where your competition is weak and customers perceive value. Its not only abouthaving a betterproductor service, its about the whole package support, customer satisfaction, distribution, PR . . . everything. Direct strategies ordinarily fail in business as they do in their military application. Dont become another bump in the road for your competition, use an indirect approach to catch them off-guard and unprepared to respond to your threat. Next up . . .Intelligence. Intelligence Among Websters definitions for erudition, two primary ones directly apply to both military and business matters 1) you need to be smart or, at least, be able to think and, 2)you need to haveknowledge of what the enemy/competition knows and thinks. Main EntryinAtelAliAgence Pronunciation in-te-l&-j&n(t)s Functionnoun Etymology middle English, from Middle French, from Latinintelligentia,fromintelligent-, intelligensintelligent The ability to learn or understand or to administer with new or trying situationsalsothe skilled use of reason.The ability to apply knowledge to manipulate ones environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria. teaching interesting an enemy or possible enemy or an areaalsoan agency engaged in obtaining such information. In military engagements, acquaintance is often more important than the size of the force, how well its arm and who it is led by. A perfect example of this is in the military strategies employed byMao Zedongas he led the Red Army in its 20+ year rebellion against theKuomintanggovernment in China .After the start of the rebellion, the Red Army, for the most part, got its butt kicked whenever and where-ever it engaged the vastly superior government army forces. For the most part, the Red Army was out-manned, had many fewer weapons and was isolated into parts of the country that made it difficult to get tactical advantage in widespread warfare. Recognizinghis deficiencies, Mao glowering to strategies that involved actively collecting intelligence about his opponent. He had spies throughout the government who collect information about their plans and actions.Perhaps even more importantly, he designated soldiers dressed in civilian clothing to be stationed throughout the country to monitor the work of the governments troops and supplies. By gathering this information and extracting trends from it, he learned what his opponent was doing and, over time, understood what type of moves that they made in reaction to his own. Ultimately, having this knowledge, Mao was able to gain t he upper hand and to ultimately defeat the government troops, exiling Chiang Kai-Shek to Taiwan in 1949.Prior to World War II, while most of the rest of the world was relatively ignorant to the value of keeping secrets, well . . . secret, the Germans invested heavily in cryptography. The efforts of the German government and military agencies to make sure that communications were secure resulted in the adoption oftheEnigma zilch machine an electro-mechanical device that encoded and decoded messages. The German Navy, in particular, relied heavily on the closeness of their communications and had the most complex Enigma machines and processes surrounding them.It took years for Germanys enemies to break the Enigma. The huge valuein breaking the code was well understood, though, and a concerted effort was mounted to breakto do soas part of the strategy to defeat the Germans. At first the colour made headway, then the British took over the main effort. Through the work of a huge number of scientists and mathematicians, mostly stationed at the famousBletchley commonsin England, and a stolen Enigma machine here and there, the assort were able to read many of the top-secret messages being sent by the Germans.Using this information, the Allies were able to change their tactics and even much of their strategy in the battle of the Atlantic. Each action took on more significance with less effort. The knowledge ofwhat the enemy was going to dolet the Allies stay one step ahead and to focus their efforts on the singular end goal of winning battles, without having to spread their forces out too far. Now, Im not suggesting that you engage in any kind of industrial espionage. but that knowing what your competition is up to is critical to your business or, at he very least, critical to how you run your business. Spies arent required. You just need to be aware. Your sales channel will be able to tell whats going on (if its not a completely machine-driven channel) and anyone that engages with your customers will discover what the competition is doing if they listen well. If youre among the group of people that claims to have no competition WAKE UP Every business has at least one competitor, even if its the choice your customer has to keep doing what theyre doing.The infinitely low barriers to entry in virtually all product or service areas these days also guarantees that youll have more competitors in the near future if your target market has any real value. Theres simply no excuse for not knowing what your current and emerging competition is up to. This knowledge not only helps you differentiate your product or service right out of the gate, but also helps you keep your cost lower because you waste less time with a more focused approach. Of course, no business that just focuses on what their competitors are doing isgoing to be successful.True success can only come from using the other kind of intelligence that which only comesfrom using your head. I n my experience (and Im at least as guilty as anyone Ive ever known) there are too-many knee-jerk reactions in business. Managers often make quick decisionsin a situation without drawn-out knowledge of what is really going on. In an environment where everything is moving fast, its a natural mistake to make. Additionally, the fear of the consequences of not answering a challenge or looking like one is in control often encourages half-baked reactions.Every manager needs to keep in caput the value of looking before they leap. Or, as I like to think about it responding instead of reacting. The difference between responding and reacting is thinking one involves it, the other doesnt. I know, I know, this is where youre saying to yourself I dont have time for long, drawn-out planning sessions. My business is go, go, go and if I slow down, Im dead. In most cases, taking a step back, drawing some pictures on a white board, talk to a few people or getting together with your aggroup to ponder the paths ahead only involves hours or perhaps a few days.Notweeks and months. Of course, at times, it does take longer. In my experience, though, whatever it takes to make an informed (note that I say informed not perfect or correct or even low-risk) decision on how to respond to the challenge that you face is worthwhile and will save you loads of time and energy later. Think about the situation, at least a little, then move. Dont move slowly, but move deliberately. As with successful military campaigns, the more intelligence you have both kinds the more likely it is that youll set yourbusiness on the trump possible path to success.Increased knowledge of whatyour competition is up to and, more importantly,considered thoughtput in to your overall strategy and to anyresponsetochanges improves your likelihood of success while helping to reduce effort that might be wasted in areas unnecessary or even unrelated to the optimal path of the business Next up, the final installmen t in this series Deception. Deception If youre like me, you immediately question how conjurationcan and should be applied to business.In a business context, the concept of fancy seems almost immoral or, at least, against the rules if not the legal ones, at least the ones understood as part of business decorum, civility or join play. Who wants to win by swindling, after all? There is little concern forsuch concepts in modern warfare (historically, much of warfare was conducted under a code of ethics aside from the Geneva Convention rules, no such code exists today), however,where the goal is most often the physical destruction of the enemy. In battle, a commanders trickery and deception can easily represent the difference between victory and death.There are few better examples of this than the campaigns of Confederate GeneralThomas Jonathan Stonewall capital of Mississippiand his army during the Civil War in the US. Stonewall Jackson is widely considered as one most gifted tacti cal commanders in US history. His shibboleth Mystify, mislead and Surprise. Early in the Civil War, during the infamousValley Campaign, Jackson found his Army outmanned, outgunned and often, surrounded. After an initial tactical defeat in a relatively small battle, Jacksons 17,000 troops well defeated the Unions 60,000 manArmy of the Potomac.He accomplished this feat by constantly surprising the enemy, attacking its flanks, mouse behind its lines and appearing like his forces were larger than they actually were. During the campaign, Jackson marched his troops almost 650 miles in 48 days to defeat and cause the retreat of a Union Army that outmanned him almost 41. Trickery and illusion were his key tactics in the Valley Campaign and he used them frequently in successive victories during the war and until his death in battle (from friendly fire) in 1863. Like Jackson before him,Erwin Rommelwas a master of deception.Even though Rommel was in general a tank commander relatively easy to detect and slow-moving he often got the upper hand on his enemies by sneaking his tanks through dense forests or via indirect routes. Rommel isbest knownfor his success during WWIIsNorth African Campaignwhere he consistently defeated the better armed and staffed British Army. His understanding of how the British tank command worked led him to implement the most important tactic to his success during the campaign making the British believe that his forces were much greater than they were.This, in turn, caused theBritishto split their forces, leaving many tanks in reserve (they conservatively never wanted to riskalltheir tanks in battle) and gave Rommels smaller force a far better chance at success. Thedeception turned out to be the key that initiated his victories. Rommel implemented this by making his tanks appear to be in locations where they were not. He would frequently have trucks drive in circles throughout the day in one area. The clouds of dust they kicked up would be so extreme that the British assumed that there were huge tank convoys preparing to entrench themselves for battle at that location.In the mean time, Rommel, would move his active tank columns at night into flanking positions around the British. Rommels ability to deceive the British let his smaller and weaker force win battles for years in the desert. In a business world that thrives on communication and rewards the speed and meter of information available, its difficult to see how deception might be usedin a strategy leading to success. After all, anything you do to mislead your competition might mislead your customer as well.There area fewuses of deception, however, that are commonly used and are worth(predicate) tools in the business strategy quiver Press releases as a defensive tool Most often successfully employed by medium to large companies, a me-too press release announcing that your company has or will have some product, feature or service that your competitor just la unched can effectively slow your competitions sales process down until you actually have it. This is especially effective if you are already the perceived market leader in that particular segment.Switching costs are, generally, high and current customers want to believe that youll continue to deliver the best stuff. Of course, this wont hold your competition off forever, but it will allow you a bit of time to catch up. Appearing bigger than you are as an offensive tool Larger companies often select to purchase from established vendors. Of course, this depends on what you are selling and how much it costs, but it is generally true for anything even remotely mission critical or costing a lot.Giving the world the impression that your company is larger or better established than you are can only help you in this environment. This can be done through advertising small companies generally do little-to-none, big companies do a lot large, highly circumpolardisplays at trade shows succes s stories from large customers focusing on implementation instead of just functions or features and so forth. Taking advantage of the ultraconservative nature of your competition Companies tend to react without thinking instead of responding in a thoughtful, considered way.You can take advantage of this by misleading your competition, when appropriate, in an effort to waste their time or defocus them. In the most basic case, you can entice them to spend energy in areas that are removed your main focus, giving you more lead time when you introduce your own new product or service. Keep in mind that when you implement strategies like this, you dont get a bye on precise execution. You still have to execute well if you cant execute your companys strategy better than your competition can execute on the same strategy, no amount of deception will help you.Certainly, deception in the form of outright lying and cheating is a dead-end strategy. It might work out in the go around term, but its going to get you in trouble in the long term. Defined a bit softer, though, as a mode for manipulating or spinning reality (I know, Im cutting this a bit thin, but you get the idea), it is almost as powerful a tool in business as it is in warfare and is one that can be employed to increase your opportunities for success.