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.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Feeding a kid

Kids. You love them, but if you have to make them do something it may become ugly :).
My kid, 3+, is not a big "eater". Usually making him finish the meal is a problem.
Lots of "please eat", "finish the meal", etc. etc. were driving me and my wife mad. Well, I would be happy if he ate something - he knows if he is hungry or not - but my wife wanted him to eat a full meal every time. So, almost every meal it was "yelling time".
One day, in a flash of inspiration I had an idea. Well, the solution is nothing magical, and I bet many use it, but it still is a good application of a strategy - that's why I present it here.
It has two parts.
1. I told the kid that the sweets after the meal are a "dessert". And dessert is what you eat only if you have finished most of the meal.
2. I is up to you to finish the meal or not. I am fine if you just ate one spoonful. You don't want to eat - you are free to walk away from the table. But no dessert - it is only "after" the meal!
Well, I was surprised myself - it worked like magic! Even, if he eats veeeerrrrryyy slowly, I now tell him: "you eat way too slowly - the meal time is over - do you want me to take the plate away?" "Oh, sorry, no, you didn't eat enough to get the dessert!" You should see the way he digs into the plate then :)!
So, now the meals are much more pleasant, and quiet!

Strategies:
"Besiege Wei to save Zhao" is used here.
To "defend Zhao" in terms of the strategy - it was next to impossible to make him finish the meal.
"Besiege Wei" (attack something dear) - if he doesn't finish, there will be no dessert.

Psychologically, since it was turned into a rule - "dessert is something that comes only after you finished most of the meal" - is not a punishment if he doesn't get it. And it is not personal, as it is "if you do not finish, I will punish you by not giving you dessert!" Nobody is hurt, everybody is happy!
And, an additional bonus - if he says "no, I do not want to eat, never mind the dessert" - then you know that he really doesn't want to eat and can take it easy!

Posted by dailyStrats at 2:52 AM

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