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Business as warfare -- while the comparison
is time-honored, today's competitive terrain calls for fresh
tactics as well as an understanding of how your opponents
approach the world. Kaihan Krippendorff, a former strategist
with McKinsey & Company, mines new inspiration from
an ancient source -- The 36 Stratagems, a 2,500-year-old
treatise born during China's warring-states period. The
Art of the Advantage brings to life these centuries-old
Chinese stratagems and explains how they can be applied
to corporate strategy.
Using ancient Eastern philosophy and military
tactics, Krippendorff shows how contemporary companies can
create unfamiliar and unpredictable corporate strategies.
At a time when companies must compete on every level: price,
strategy, distribution, manufacturing, customer service,
R&D and operations, gaining any type of advantage promotes
a company's ultimate success. The stratagems break inherited
ways of thinking, cultural assumptions and rules, and they
provide patterns for navigating complex situations and competitive
interactions.
Krippendorff skillfully weaves the story
of the ancient stratagems with contemporary case studies
from top business and strategic management schools. Each
chapter analyzes a company's situation, options, decisions,
and results. The 36 stratagems are divided equally into
four thematic parts: Polarity (Yin Yang) explores
the balance of opposing forces; Yielding (Wu Wei)
illustrates alternatives to confrontation; Continuous Change
(Wu Chang) shows how to thrive in fluid situations,
and Indirect Action (Shang Bing Wu Bing) proposes
alternatives to head-on conflict.
The Art of Advantage is a timely
and timeless resource for executives and corporate strategists
and will change the way they think.
Kaihan Krippendorff worked at McKinsey
& Company, Deloitte Consulting, Matsumoto Group and
Calhoun Baker. He earned his MBA from Columbia University
and his BSE in Finance and Engineering from the University
of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Wharton Business
School. He lives in Miami, Florida.
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