The Art of War for Small Business

10

UNITY

Unity is a critical and recurrent theme of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, but not necessarily one that is highlighted by most authors and Sun Tzu scholars. I am absolutely convinced that this attribute is just as important for small-business practitioners to be able to survive and thrive as it was for Sun Tzu and his military forces. This chapter follows from “Focus” (Chapter 9), because for a team to be unified, its members must understand and share the organization’s focus.

This passage speaks volumes about the importance of unity to the small-business leaders who will seek to apply it. Here we see again Sun Tzu’s strategy to use the many to attack the few. This is particularly pertinent for small forces:

We can form a single united body, while ...