Military metaphors come naturally to the world of business, with “price wars”, “takeover battles” and “marketing campaigns”. Anyone who has browsed in an airport bookshop will be familiar with titles about instilling the warrior spirit in senior management. Many hold up military commanders as models. In addition to the obvious candidates – Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon – such characters as Attila the Hun are touted as exemplars for the modern manager.
But these heroes rarely offer guidance of enduring relevance. The lessons drawn from their experiences often do no more than show that long ago there was an intuitive understanding of what we might now call best practice. Attila, for example, adapted to adversity, learnt from mistakes and was a listening, caring boss to his subordinate chieftains.
Jack Welch of General Electric is one chief executive who spoke about the influence of the military classics on his strategy. When shutting down the company’s planning department in the early 1980s, he cited the warning of Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz that successful strategy could not be formulaic; as well as Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder’s observation that no plan survives contact with the enemy. The latter presented strategy as a “system of expediencies”, and Mr Welch agreed that, instead of sticking doggedly to a complicated plan, it was better to be ready to respond to environmental changes.