Access to Stanza Articles

GaryGagliardi — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 20:02:36 +0000

The Institute's Daily Sun Tzu Article on the front page is offered for free. Come back daily to read about the secrets hidden in Sun Tzu's work.

To get complete access to ALL Secrets of Sun Tzu's Stanzas Articles and access to ALL 232 articles in the Sun Tzu's Rule Book become an Institute Member to support our work teaching Winning Without Conflict.

$49.00

Contribution Points: 4900

$49.00

Contribution Points: 4900

7.3.1 Expected Elements

GaryGagliardi — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:00:00 +0000

February 3, 2012

"There are only a few notes in the scale.
Yet you can always rearrange them.
You can never hear every song of victory."
Sun Tzu's The Art of War 5:2:11-13

Description:

Sun Tzu's seven rules on dividing processes and systems into components.

Perspective:

"Both traditions want people to think. They want people who are problem solvers and can take apart a problem and put it back together again.” Marlene Barron

Situation:

Linear thinking requires using pre-planned processes, working with systems and machines. We are trained to use these systems without understanding them. We can start to think that we need not and cannot understand how systems work, but even things that can be hard to make can be easy to understand. We are not taught a comprehensive method for taking existing things apart to see how they are made to work. We take the existing components for granted. When we use products, machines, and processes, we are not aware of the parts. The human mind filters out what is expected and taken for granted.

Opportunity:

Sun Tzu teaches that opportunities are hidden (3.2.2 Opportunity Invisibility). As we lose sight of the components of which things are made, an opening is created. We want to identify overlooked components that we can exploit. Those who take the time to break things into their parts can use this understanding to their strategic advantage.

Sun Tzu's Rules:

The following seven rules describe Sun Tzu's systematic process for identifying the elements that can be rearranged or replaced to create surprise.

Everything that people put together can be taken apart. Unlike the complexity that arises in complex, adaptive systems, which is beyond our understanding, human constructions can be broken down into smaller pieces. Machines are made of parts. Processes are a series of steps. Recipes consist of ingredients. When any of these are taken apart, we better understood it. Every created object and every intentional action is made of small components (7.2.1 Proven Methods).
Steps in a process are events arranged in time. Arrangements in time describe steps in a process, each having a length of time, a place in the sequence, and a frequency of repetition (1.8.3 Cycle Time).
Parts are arranged in a physical relationship to each other to create organization in space. Arrangements in space describes how parts are put together in a machine or a picture, having shape, relative size, and attributes of interaction (4.4 Strategic Distance).
The relative portions of ingredients in a recipe are the qualitative parts of the formula. Portions in a formula are based on relative, measurable quantities. Formulas describe how ingredients are put together where those ingredients have different characteristics and interact with each other. The relative quantity of each of those components is the key to the recipe (2.2.2 Mental Models).
Every step, part, or ingredient in a system fills a specific need, and all needs are potential openings. Systems, relationships, and processes satisfy people's needs. Whether people recognize it or not, each part, each step, each ingredient satisfies a piece of that need, filling a small opening. To understand the component, we must understand its value, meaning, and purpose as part of the whole (2.4.5 Mission Perspective).
Every step, part, or ingredient of a system creates a specific expectation. Just as we take the expected for granted, our brains are geared to recognize the abnormal, the things that are out of place. By shifting from what is normal, we have the opportunity to get people's attention and create surprise (7.2.2 Preparing Expectations).
Rearranging parts may or may not improve efficiency, but it always creates surprise. When we focus on internal production, efficiency is most important, but when we focus on external competition, the surprise is most important. From the surprise, we seize initiative, creating momentum. To create surprise, we don't have to improve the process. All we have to do is violate expectations (1.9 Competition and Production).

Illustration:

Sun Tzu describes this method for understanding in terms of sound, sight, and flavor. Let us combine his description with a description of the system, the computer, that I am using to write this.

Everything that people put together can be taken apart. We can take apart computers. We can see how their pieces fit together. Those who are in the computer business must take them apart in order to improve them.
Steps in a process are events arranged in time. Using a computer is a process. Activities follow in a certain sequence, requiring a certain amount of time. I must turn it on, select a program to run, choose what documents I want to work on, start working, save my work, and so on.
Parts are arranged in a physical relationship to each other to create organization in space. As a machine, it has physical components organized in space. I expect the keyboard to be below the screen, the keys to be arranged on it in a certain way, the touch pad to be in front of the keyboard, and the touch pad buttons in front of it.
The relative portions of ingredients in a recipe are the qualitative parts of the formula. In a computer, the quantitative elements are the size of its memory, its screen, its disk-drive and so on. Software depends on certain minimum quantities in order to function.
Every step, part, or ingredient in a system fills a specific need, and all needs are potential openings. We need a keyboard to get data into the system. That need can be fulfilled by other forms of data entry than typing. We need a screen for data output. Other forms of data output can satisfy that need.
Every step, part, or ingredient of a system creates a specific expectation. I have certain expectations for how the software will work because I know the steps that have worked in the past to perform a certain function. The same is true of the physical parts, such as the layout of the keyboard. For certain computer parts--the power button, the volume control, etc. I have no expectation because there is no standard design or location, so those components have no affect on expectations.
Rearranging parts may or may not improve efficiency, but it always creates surprise. To create surprise, we must change the order of events or elements. We initially meet expectations by satisfying those expectations, but we surprise by violating them, arranging the component in a novel way. For example in process, computers increasingly skip the "select program" part, loading the appropriate program instantly when we pick the document we want to work on. Small Web-book laptops assume we are going to access the internet and load a browser. In hardware, tablet computers use touch screens as virtual keyboards. This opens the possibility of creating a virtual keyboard that could display programmable keys that display their user-defined functions.