Defense Maneuvers
Sun Tzu said, “It is a military axiom not to advance uphill against the enemy, nor to oppose him when he comes downhill. Do not pursue an enemy who simulates flight; do not attack soldiers whose temper is keen. Do not swallow bait offered by the enemy. Do not interfere with an army that is returning home. When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard. Such is the art of warfare.”
If you have the higher ground, you are in a superior position. Sun Tzu shows that you should never try and fight a force that has superior positioning. In the market, avoid competing with companies that have a lot of superior patents and intellectual authority. You should avoid companies that seem to have a real advantage that you can't overcome. They will simply use up your resources and defeat you easily.
If the competition is well tempered and calm, do not attack them. They will be very difficult to beat. If you are chasing after someone that runs away quite well, let them go. They will outmaneuver you. Do not take the enemy's bait.
In business, these are all important points to make. You should pick your battle carefully. You shouldn't try and overtake a company with superior positioning. You will most likely lose.
If you go after the competition, and they retreat swiftly, then you should not chase after them. They may be offering up a trap for you or they may just be better at maneuvering than you. If you come focus on a competitors product and they are retreating, you may study them carefully. The product launch may be a trap or it may mean that they are going to come up with something new and better that you do not know about.
Some companies swallow the bait. This is bad news. One of the biggest mistakes ever made was when IBM gave Bill Gates the operating system to dos. Bill's mother worked at IBM. I can only imagine what might have been said to get IBM to take the bait. The systems true value was probably downplayed. Or, maybe Bill Gates pretended like it wasn't that important or that he wanted to buy it, but probably wouldn't do much with it. These are only skeptical guesses. The bottom line is that there must have been some idea that IBM swallowed to get them to sell for so cheap. That idea may have been planted bait or it may have just been the incompetency of management.
Many great leaders are great at putting subtle ideas into the heads of their opponents. They may come up with ideas that seem not to matter. The competition will react to the ideas without really thinking about it. The whole process can sometimes be set up to get the opponent to make a decision in their favor. In many organizations, smart people plant subtle ideas to influence management and others. The ideas are so indirect that people tend to ignore them and yet they still understand and take the idea in. Then, at the opportune time, the person can capitalize on their implantation of the subtle ideas.
One of the most interesting things about Sun Tzu is that he says to always leave an outlet for the opponent. This is very important. A force that feels they have no option. A force that feels they must fight to the death and that there is nothing else possible will fight much better and be much harder to defeat. The casualties will be much higher. It is much better to leave an outlet so that the opponent feels they can run away, if necessary. This will deflate some of their spirit and will to fight.
In business, it is similar. You do want to make a larger competitor feel so threatened that they will stop at nothing to take down your business. You should compete with larger competitors and yet always leave them another option that is feasible and profitable for them. For example, you might work on a niche that they do not care about a lot. You might take over a niche that they do not want that much and yet let the larger company make a product that is similar, but not in direct competition with you.
One example of this is Netscape. They were cornered by Microsoft and decided to fight them their hardest. They brought billion dollar lawsuits against Microsoft. Microsoft had to deal with many legal battles and had to pay billions in damages. If Microsoft had given Netscape some room to breathe and stay alive, they probably wouldn't have went after them so fiercely. Microsoft could have left Netscape with a profitable business and yet Microsoft could have still had the majority share of the market. That would have avoided Microsoft a lot of trouble.
The main thing about defensive posture is to know that you should retreat from battles that you can't win. You should be careful what knowledge you take in and avoid baiting techniques. You should not press competition too hard and should avoid attacking those that are retreating.
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