The history of the Peloponnesian war- Thucydides

I could read this book for the rest of my life and learn.

Power and empire:

“For the true author of the subjugation of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as the power which is able to prevent it, yet permits it.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.56).

Athens role in fighting Persia: “But we left behind us a city that was a city no longer, and staked our lives for a city that had an existence only in desperate hope, and so bore our ful share in your deliverance and in ours.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.61).

 “Men seem to resent injustice more than violence; the former is regarded as unfair advantage taken by an equal, the latter is compulsion applied by a superior.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.63).

“war is a matter not so much of arms as of money, which makes arms of use. This is more than ever true in a struggle between a continental and a maritime power. First, then, let us provide money, and not allow ourselves to be carried away by the talk of our allies before we have done so.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.66).

“If we undertake the war without preparation we should only delay its conclusion by hastening its commencement.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.66).

“It is not in Attica that the war will be decided, as some imagine, but in the countries by which Attica is supported.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.147).

wise moderation:

“we are not carried away by the pleasure of hearing ourselves cheered on to risks which our judgment condemns.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.66).

“in fact, they (brave men) are neither intoxicated by their success in war, nor disposed to take an injury for the sake of the delightful tranquility of peace. Indeed, to falter for the sake of such delights is, if you remain inactive, the quickest way of losing the sweets of repose to which you cling.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.70).

“The confidence with which we form our schemes is never completely justified in their execution; we plan in safety, but when it comes to action, fear causes us to fail.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.71).

The Athenian attitude:

“A scheme unexecuted is with them (the Athenians) a positive loss, a successful enterprise a comparative failure. If they fail in some attempt, they compensate for the miscarriage by conceiving new hopes; unike other people, with them to hope is to have, so quick are they to put an idea into practice. They toil on in trouble and danger all the days of their life, with little opportunity for enjoying, ever engaged in getting.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.58).

Pericles: “Wealth to us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degradation to make no effort to overcome. (…) We differ from other states in regarding the man who holds aloof from public life not as “quiet” but as useless. (…) not that words and deeds go ill together, but that acts are foredoomed to failure when undertaken undiscussed. For we are noted for being at once most adventurous in action and most reflective beforehand. (…) But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out and meet it.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.113).

“Remember that to lose what one has got is more disgraceful than to be balked in getting.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.127).

“The secret of this was their general extraordinary success, which made them confuse their strength with their hopes.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.227). “for it is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use reason arbitrarily to thrust aside what they do not fancy.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.242).

Pericles on democracy:

“Our constitution is named a democracy, because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many. But our laws secure equal justice for all in their private disputes, and our public opinion welcomes and honors talent in every branch of achievement, not for any sectional reason but on grounds of excellence alone. And as we give free play to all in our public life, so we carry the same spirit into our daily relations with one another. We have no black looks or angry words for our neighbor if he enjoys himself in his own way, and we abstain from the little acts of churlishness which, though they leave no mark, yet cause annoyance to whoso notes them. Open and friendly in our private intercourse in our public acts we keep strictly within the control of law. We acknowledge the restraint of reverence; we are obedient to whomsoever is set in authority, and to the laws, more especially to those which offer protection to the oppressed and those unwritten ordinances whose transgression brings admitted shame.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.112).

The role of advisers in the democracy

“Pericles, by his rank, ability and known integrity, was able to exercise an independent control over the masses – to lead them instead of being led by them; for as he never sought power to improper means, he was never compelled to flatter them.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.130).

“a wise city, without over-distinguishing its best advisers, will nevertheless not deprive them of their due, and far from punishing unlucky counsellor will not even regard him as disgraced. In this way successful orators will be least tempted to sacrifice their convictions to popularity.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.165).

“Besides the hand of Heaven must be borne with resignation, that of the enemy with fortitude.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.128).

“Words changed their ordinary meaning and were construed in new senses. Reckless daring passed for the courage of a loyal partisan, far-sighted hesitation was the excuse of a coward, moderation was the pretext of the unmanly, the power to see all sides of a question was complete inability to act. Impulsive rashness was held the mark of a man, caution in conspiracy was a specious excuse for avoiding action.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.190).

How to bring peace

The Spartans to Athens after the latter win a Pylos: “Men of few words where many are not wanted, we can be less brief when there is a matter of importance to be illustrated and an end to be served by its illustration. Meanwhile we beg you to take what we may say, not in a hostile spirit, nor as if we thought you ignorant and wished to lecture you, but rather as a suggestion on the best course to be taken, addressed to intelligent critics. You can now, if you choose, employ your present success to advantage, so as to keep what you have got and gain honor and reputation besides, and you can avoid the mistake of those who meet with an extraordinary piece of good fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp continually at something further, because they have had an unexpected success.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.206).

“Indeed if great enmities are ever to be really settled, we think it will be, not by the system of revenge and military success, and by forcing an opponent to swear to a treaty to his disadvantage, but when the more fortunate combatant waives these his privileges, is guided by gentler feelings, conquers his rival in generosity, and accords peace on more moderate conditions than were expected. From that moment, instead of the debt of revenge which violence must entail, his adversary owes a debt of generosity to be paid in kind, and is inclined by honour to stand to his agreement.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.207).

On strategy

“the surest method of harming an enemy is to find out what he most fears, and to choose this means of attacking him, for everyone naturally knows best the weak points which he has most to fear.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.326).

 “they cut down their prows, to make them more solid, and added thick catheads, and from these let stays into the vessel’s side for a length of nine feet within and without. (…) the Athenian vessels which were not as strongly built, but were slight in the bows (this suited the Athenian tactics of sailing round and charging the enemy’s flank instead of meeting him prow to prow). (…) The Athenians, if repulsed, would not be able to back water in any direction except towards the shore and that only for a short way, and in the small space in front of their own camp. The rest of the harbor would be commanded by the Syracusans. (…) Having determined on tactics to suit their skill and strength.” (Thucydides, 1943, p.353).

The Lords of Strategy – Walter Kiechel 2010

Lots of interesting ideas, as Kiechel takes the dead and obvious concepts and cracks them open, providing us with a view on them when they were fresh and new.

And, like all ideas, they were exciting before they have been overused and turned into clichés.

“After all, by what other construct but strategy could an executive structure an understanding of the enterprise.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.281).

The strategy as the complete view of the firm:

 “the purpose of strategy was to match a company’s capabilities to the opportunities in its environment.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.26).

“its emphases on treating your company as a portfolio of businesses that might be bought or sold, placing your bets where you had a competitive advantage, and using debt to finance the effort.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.205).

Ideas at the core of consulting:

Strategy has “the ability to take an extraordinary complex, integrated, multidimensional problem and get arms around it conceptually in a way that helps, that informs and empowers practicioners to actually do things.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.122).

Strategy is “powerful oversimplification.”

“I was an idea junkie.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.49).“Or, as one early BCG partner puts it, “We invented the retail marketing of business ideas.”” (Kiechel, 2010, p.21). “Put simply, Henderson cared more about his intellectual explorations and surrounding himself with exciting companions on the voyage than he did about putting the enterprise on a sustainable footing.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.49).

The human side

 “strategists, including Porter, had thoroughly neglected the dimension of the human, the capabilities and desires of the individuals who turn strategy from concept into reality.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.137). “If the economists posited a sort of corporate version of their famous fiction, homo economicus, the consultants endowed it with certain qualities of an army – always in a fight (competition), led from the top, its sense of itself built around its strategy.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.140).

Experience curve:

“businesses should expect their costs to decline systematically.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.32). “your cost position should reflect your share of the market.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.32). “A bigger market share typically means you have more experience (…) which should mean your costs are lower than theirs.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.32).

“What we were doing was pricing it for what it was going to be.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.40).

 It “was a poor basis for strategy in mature industries – beer, cement – where accumulated experience doubled at glacial pace.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.45).The curve “could leave you open to being blindsided by changes in taste or technology.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.45).

Matrix

“his recommendation “was balancing operating risk and financial risk.” If you had a low level of operating risk, as timber companies did, “beef up the financial risk by the use of debt, to get the appropriate level of debt for the business.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.54).“The vertical dimension was to display expected growth of the market in which the business competed.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.62). “The horizontal dimension would indicate relative market share. (…) Share was plotted on a logarithmic scale.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.62).

Not advice. Profit.

“By virtue of its be-there-with-you-all-the-way approach, Bain & Company stole a march on its competitors in tackling implementation.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.86). ““We don’t sell advice by the hour; we sell profits at a discount.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.87). “At his (Bower’s) firm, the interst of clients would always come first, assignments would be refused if the consultants didn’t add value, and everyone would wear a hat on leaving the office.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.98).

“In the perfect world dreamed of in their philosophy, the laws of supply and demand should quickly compete away any supernormal profit-making advantage.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.123).

Not just cost. Look at differentiation & innovation

“McKinsey was always interested in helping our clients figure out ways they could raise prices. I’m not sure that BCG, with its focus on cost, had the same emphasis.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.191)

“There were essentially three strategies a company could choose, he (Porter) posited: low-cost leadership (beloved of fans of the experience curve), product differentiation (making your offering so distinctive that you could charge more for it), or market specialization (pick a niche and dominate it).” (Kiechel, 2010, p.132).

“S curves almost always come in at least pairs, he argued, with the successor technology experiencing its own slow start but beginning from higher on the performance axis. The evidence also suggested that a company that was a master of one technology and S curve almost never succeeded in jumping successfully to the next one.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.235).

“Defining entrepreneurship as “the pursuit of opportunity beyond the resources currently controlled.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.288).

“Part of the challenge is that value creation, whether in the form of innovation or growth, has never been proven as susceptible to systematization as has cost reduction.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.192).

No Best Practice ever last.

“Managing for survival, even among the best and most revered corporations, does not guarantee strong long-term performance for shareholders. In fact, just the opposite is true. In the long run, markets always win.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.167).

Effectiveness is not strategy

“a world of ever-faster change, you didn’t need a strategy and might even be held back by one when you should be reinventing yourself.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.250).“failed to distinguish between “operational effectiveness” and “strategy.”” (Kiechel, 2010, p.250). “operational effectiveness thus boiled down, for Porter, to pretty much performing the same activities as your competitors, but more efficiently than they do. In contrast – drumroll here – “Strategic positioning means performing different activities from rivals’ or performing similar activites in different ways.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.251).“competitors quickly copy one another’s techniques and technologies, pushing what he called the industry’s “productivity frontier” ever outward.” (Kiechel, 2010, p.251).