Over the years in numerous posts, I have referred to Sun Tzu’s Art of War and von Causwitz’s On War, suggesting correlations between the battlefield and the marketplace. Both authors hated war because they had wide and deep experience with it.

While re-reading Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson’s latest book, It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work, I again came upon these comments:

“The business world is obsessed with fighting and winning and doiminating and destroying. This ethos turns business leaders into tiny Napoleons. It’s not enough for them to merely put their dent in the universe. No, they have to own the fucking universe.

Companies that live in such a zero-sum game don’t ‘earn market share from a competitor, they ‘conquer the market.’ They don’t just serve their customers, they ‘capture’ them.  They ‘target’ customers, employ a sales ‘force,’  hire ‘headhunters’ to find new talent, pick their ‘battles,’ and make a ‘killing.’

“This language of war writes awful stories. When you think of yourself as a military commander who has to eliminate the enemy (your competition), it’s much easier to justify dirty tricks and anything-goes morals. And the bigger the battle, the dirtier it gets.

“Like they say, all’s fair in love and war. Except this isn’t love, and it isn’t war.  It’s business.”

I highly recommend all four of their books, especially It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work. published by HarperBusiness (October 2018). To learn more about them and their work, please click here.