The much revered Sun-Tzu’s Art of war was the bible of business school and businessmen for the last 20 years.
The book is fascinating.
The description of strategy and tactics to implement the strategy is detailed and narrated with reference to real events of the life and career of the Chinese general.
Being a book about war, it is pervaded by a natural aggressive behaviour. As a consequence, the translation into a business book brought this behaviour along.
Target and other military terms walked with us for all these years in advertising business, too.
Until the communication was top down, from the brand to the target, fair enough, but now that we want to establish a conversation with customers, well, it’s time for diplomacy and the art of listening.
That’s why it’s time to say goodbye to Sun-Tzu, thanks him for the support given in these years, and look for Madame du Deffand, the French lady whose salon was renowned as the place which gave birth to the art of conversation.
And being able to have a conversation, required another strong effort to businessmen, used to talk and not to listen: to be informed of what’s going on outside your office, to be immersed not in the paper on your desk but in real life of your customers and prospects. You have to talk about something that really matters to people and it may not be necessarily your brand as first step. But it pays dividend.
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