The general being an official, serve the nation. If he is thoughtful and detailed in his work, the nation would be strong and mighty. If he is full of flaws, the nation would be weak and vulnerable. - Sun Zi Art of War, Chapter 3

In the third section of the chapter, we have seen the importance of the generals of the nation, the stronger they are the stronger the nation. This sentence reinforces the saying of Sun Zi, that the generals hold the fate of the nation and its people.

In war, it is better to go for swift victories rather than engaging in a prolong campaign. Thus a general who is adept in warfare is also the controller of people’s fate and nation’s survival. - Sun Zi Art of War, Chapter 2

Business Application

So did you staff your management with capable 'generals'? As Sun Zi mentioned above, your company will only be as strong as the weakest management staff in you company. This is because the weakest management staff would be restricting how far your company moves.

There are two essential skill or knowledge that a manager should have in order for the department he is managing to be functional in a company. First is the 'people' skill and secondly is the knowledge of the industry that the company is in.

'People’ Skill'

Let’s look at 'people' skill first. The manager must definitely have the ‘people’ skill because he will be leading a team of people. He must be able to inspire and motivate his team, build trust and confidence with his team or else all instructions that are passed down by him would not be executed at all. He needs to maintain the cohesiveness of his team so that the team members can create synergy together to produce far greater results. By making the environment that his team works in conducive, he can reduce staff turnover as well and there are a lot of benefits to lower staff turnover.

Industrial Knowledge

Manager of each team should have industrial knowledge. This is critical or he would not be able to steer the team in the correct direction that is aligned with the company’s direction. Now you may ask, “What about administrative departments or human resource departments? Do they need to be led by managers that have industrial knowledge?” Of course, they need to have. Remember one of the factors that Sun Zi mentioned that is critical to strategic planning and execution? It is system or processes. If any of the company's processes does not keep up with the change, or worst, requirement of the industry or market the company is serving, it can be disastrous.

So as mentioned by Sun Zi, your 'generals' are very important to the company. Make sure you put the best person in and most importantly at least, have the industrial knowledge and the 'people' skill.

Koo Ping Shung's interest lies in Business (especially strategy formulation & execution, corporate leadership) and China History & Military Works and is currently doing research on combining these two together.

He is currently working on http://www.chinese-wiki.com, a website that aims to showcase Chinese Wisdom & Application, from China History to Ancient Chinese Military Strategists & Philosophers to the world.

For those who are interested in reading more about Sun Zi Art of War, please go to http://www.chinese-wiki.com/Sun_Zi_Art_of_War