What is this all about?:

Military strategies are for wars and martial arts techniques are for fighting - right?
Well, don’t we fight our little wars and conflicts daily? At work, at home, in the shop, in the street, with kids or parents, you name it. Sometimes even putting a kid to bed turns into a sizeable conflict!
And don’t we waste tons of nerves and energy in these little fights?
Shouldn’t the ideas from the strategies and techniques be applicable to our daily conflicts? And make it easier to win and live?

Well, I think - "yes"! And I am trying to put together here a sizable amount of examples to show this. Below I present these examples together with the underlying ideas taken from military or martial arts. Sometimes their application looks like plain psychology, sometimes as office politics, and sometimes just as little tricks that you can use. And, you bet, at times it is not that pretty, but hey, who said that warfare is pretty?

As with martial arts, you can use it just to fend off attacks or to hurt people. Some ideas are aikido/judo like – soft. Some are hard. You can be gentle or play it rather ugly – it depends on you - hope not - but sometimes the circumstances dictate that too.

If you live in a violent area – it is a good idea to take some form of karate-like training, right?
By the same measure “if you live in a world of conflicts – it is a good idea to learn some techniques to handle them”.
Or you may go on and fight them “head on”.

I would be happy to hear your comments or examples – just go ahead and add a comment anywhere – I will re-post it if necessary.

Sun Tzu said: "..to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."

On the right there are links to previous posts - strategy definitions and examples of use.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Application example of strategy "let him have it and regret!"

Here is a real story.
A couple has bought an apartment, which they intended to let the in-laws live in for a while. The father-in-law, being a big boss in the past, decided to take active part in the refurbishment process.

So, the father-in-law - hyperactive but in total disconnect from reality - started driving his son-in-law nuts with "I want that" and "why don't they change this", etc. etc. After two weeks of daily arguments and fighting the absurd proposals and requirements of the father-in-law, the younger guy decided the he has had enough!

After a long night up and thinking he came next day to his father-in-law and said the following: "You know what, I give up. From now on - you decide. You say - me do!"
The old guy went "err...WHAT?!". He wanted the adrenalin of the action but not the burden of checking the feasibility, prices and etc. And after realizing that he will have to do that AND will be responsible for the results he immediately backed off: "No-no-no you decide! I do not know, and I do not understand enough...! You decide!". From that moment on, it was enough to ask "do you want to make the decision?" to bring him to his senses!

The young guy was shocked - in less then a minute of "non-direct" approach he has achieved what he couldn't get in two weeks of daily yelling and shouting!

Posted by dailyStrats at 2:29 AM

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting to know.

November 10, 2008 at 2:25 PM

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