The New Rules of Management Warfare

General Sir David Richards, the head of the UK Army, reckons that the army faces a 'cavalry versus tanks' moment: the rules of war have been rewritten.

Those new rules are not about big ships, fast fighters and cold wars, but about insurgency, intelligence, robotics and unmanned planes.

Management is also facing a similar horse vs. tank moment. As with the military revolution, so the management revolution has been slow and there are plenty of "cavalry" style managers out there who are in denial about the change.

The new rules for corporate warriors are:

1. Make your own rules. Forget the gurus with their quack formulas for instant success.
2. Size is no defence. In business we are now engaged in an era of asymmetric competition. Your deadliest foes are the ones who change the rules and compete on their terms. Remember, David beat Goliath.
3. Command and control is so last millennium. Build a network of allies and supporters inside and beyond the organisation. Commitment, not command is the way forward.
4. We are engaged in a technology arms race. Most technology costs too much and is badly used, but the cost of not keeping up is to be a cavalry officer charging at some tanks. Not smart.
5. Being smart (high IQ) and nice (high EQ) is no longer enough. You need to have real smarts about how to make things happen in your organisation. You need political skills (PQ) to be effective.
6. Know your competition. For most managers, your greatest threat sits at a desk nearby, or in Bangalore. Your external competition could be partners you work with, or start ups you have never heard of. Only the paranoid will survive.
7. The customer still rules, but is very confused. They don't know what they want. They did not ask for the Web, iPods or ayurvedic massages. They are confused by too much choice. So create the future for them, make it easy for them and make it cheap.
8. Quality, service, price and features are not trade offs. In the new competition there is only one race: betterfastercheaper. They want it all, and they want it now. And the harder you run, the harder your competitors run.
9. Entropy kills. Every firm slides towards chaos: customers change, competitors work harder, staff turnover, cock ups happen, the taxman gets greedier. The effect of every improvement initiative is not to raise performance, but to stop entropy taking over. Just surviving takes hard work.
10. Uncertainty is risk and opportunity. In the fog of war, the bold will accelerate their destiny by taking control. As a result, they will succeed fast or fail fast.

(Image: Miss Rogue, CC.2.0)