Act from Strength
Conserve Your Energy
5: Performing
Employ Universal Timing
Time Your Moves
Introduce the Unexpected
Build Momentum
Create Your Own Reality
6: Exploiting Weakness
Carve Your Path
Define Your Style
Take Initiatives
Leverage Strengths
Minimize Your Lesser Strengths
Unite
Protect Your Image
Guard Your Vulnerabilities
Undermine the Competition
Protect Your Health
Maneuver to Advantage
8: Navigating
Develop Credibility
Weigh Circumstances
Be Flexible
Exploit Advantages
Do the Right Thing
9: Managing and Leading
Manage Things, Lead People
Lead People
Resolve Problems
Establish Priorities
Meet Needs
10: Moving Forward
Evaluate Conditions
Create Favorable Circumstances
Take the Right Path
Avoid the Wrong Move
Be Disciplined and Patient
11: Deployment
Pick Your Turf
Confuse Opponents
Energize
Use Common Sense
12: Coping
The Nature of Attack
Negating an Attack
Attacking When Advantageous
Defend When Attacked
Survive and Thrive
13: Networking
Understand the Process
Create Alliances
Build Your Network
Share and Beware
Read the Handwriting on the Wall
INTRODUCTION
Win-Win: The War Unfought
The gender gap is shrinking around the globe, yet the breach remains wide enough to frustrate and stifle far too many women seeking an equal opportunity to improve their lives and realize their ambitions.
Countless empowerment groups offer women opportunities to share their experiences with others who offer support and guidance. Lisa Borders (past president of the Women’s National Basketball Association) became the first president and CEO of Time’s Up, a group founded to fight workplace sexual harassment, assault and abuse. And who hasn’t heard of the international movement spawned by #MeToo, the formidable and growing anti-sexual-assault and women’s empowerment movement? No longer do women need to fight back alone.
What do women want? Many seek an even playing field in and outside the workplace. Many men may share this imperative, but reality suggests that a majority do not. The reason, we believe, is that men and women view themselves, their environments and the world differently.
It is no secret that male dominance has been the norm since times long past, though history is a crippled justification for clinging to inequities rooted in caveman images and mean-minded discrimination. Change is slow. Sure, women occupy the higher ranks in politics and business, but their numbers represent a pitiable minority.
American women today may be challenged and compromised to a slightly lesser degree than when their moms grew up, but why should men continue to enjoy a reduced rate to paradise for similar or shoddier performances? Anybody ever heard of a good ol’ girls network? Sun Tzu’s Art of War for Women doesn’t advocate creating one, but suggests how your personal goals and desired changes might be achieved in an unbalanced environment where males dominate disproportionately.
The good news: There is no need to set the world on fire, only to light a flame beneath the stubborn posteriors that may be cluttering your path. The better news is that the principles of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War can transliterate into tactics for success. Your success. Like one of our grandmas used to say, “Vy not?”
The Art of War for Women
“All warfare is based on deception.” –Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu’s work The Art of War dates to the 6th century BCE. It is widely considered to be the earliest treatise written on the basic principles of warfare. Its central theme is conducting and winning war with minimum confrontation, risk and loss. Along with other military classics, it has been widely studied and embraced as a primer for devising military and business strategies. Given the times Sun Tzu lived in, his motives in writing The Art of War were not focused on the problems confronting women. Nor does our book, Sun Tzu’s Art of War for Women, address the full range of women’s issues, but primarily the environments in which they work.
Despite this emphasis, the tactics you will find in Sun Tzu’s Art of War for Women are readily transferrable to family and social issues wherever men and women come together. Its principle is to win, when possible, before a war breaks out: subtly, peacefully and with limited rancor. The essence of win-win.
Sun Tzu’s contention that “All warfare is based upon deception” (as in allowing your enemy to perceive you as weaker or stronger than you really are) might imply that seeking peace instead of war can be founded on honesty and openness (e.g., the absence of artifice). Interestingly, the word Westerners traditionally translate as “art” in Chinese more precisely translates into English as “as water goes.” The idea of a natural path (as opposed to “art”) relates to the precepts and methodologies found in the Tao Te Ching1, and its influence is referenced here and there in the pages of our book.
Fear not if the concept of deception perturbs your principles, we’re not talking about becoming a liar, cheat or master of deception. Among honest equals none of this would normally be needed. But playing in rough or unscrupulous company renders Boy and Girl Scouts vulnerable and at an unfair