Improve Outcomes Through Grouping Strategies
Mobilizing The pieces To Debilitate Your Enemy
The plethora of people fail to realize how much process goes into innovation. There is a product, outcome, goal that should be initially striped four, charge it out, and mapped.
Most people can perform tasks. These “pawns” are important as they can provide numbers, hands, eyes, are the mouthpieces to get you one step closer to your goal. Their thinking is linear, task oriented- these are not innovators, they are simply doers.
Then you have a category of people with fragmented thinking, some innovative thought, these people become your mercenaries, your “knights.” These are the people who help you connect with other people in the industry, they however don’t have the reach or structural integrity to help you map out a vision.
Similarly, you have the people with reach, experienced professional “bishops” who have an understanding of what a process should present itself as. However, these people will never thrive under intuition or innovation.
The playmakers or the “rooks” can survey your position, trap, instigate, and align partnerships, essential in diligently communicating goals across-the-board. Rooks help pave the way for your vision.
Then you have the “queen”, you’re most trusted advisor who can survey an entire board: communicate, orchestrate, facilitate. These people are rare, they take charge, deploy command, and understand the entirety of the structure. These people are intuitive, natural leaders and communicators. these people are as rare as the “King.”
The “King” is the facilitator of a game plan. He is the institution of culture, theory, value. He brings the pieces together to both protect himself, while threatening an opponent.
I did not just ascribe roles to a chessboard, I’ve offered a metaphor. In order to understand your value, start by creating value within your agency or community. Create a systematic culture that bands together for a cohesive attack, a culture that places numerical importance on every individual, but offers a chain of command and instruction. Culturism is important because it has theory ingrained into it.
A chess player who is superior will not sacrifice his pieces to dwindle down into the game unless absolutely necessary. He knows the theory and strategy behind every move he makes, as well as the moves of his opponents.
While theoretics and analogies serve a fine purpose, it is essential to parallel it to an example. I gotcha default to Napoleon who is credited with being amongst the greatest tacticians and military geniuses of his time.
Napoleon was a “King,” a man of action who took on all of Europe and debilitated his opponents by empowering every single one of his men. For he knew that all men fell into the categorization I provided above.
There is a reason Napoleon was the most successful general and precisely why a majority of European and Civil War generals copied his methods of Napoleon- however not everyone was met with success.
Mindset is the reason; as British general Wellington said: "Napoleon and his presence on the field made the difference of 40,000 men."
This is because Napoleon not only characterized people, but he also considered every aspect a metric. Napoleon fought battles under the varied conditions of weather, terrain, and climate, and against a greater variety of enemies.
His understanding of mass warfare and his success in raising, organizing, and equipping mass armies revolutionized the conduct of war and marked the origin of modern warfare.
Napoleon understood psychology. Once grouped, different people have different motivators. Once you understand how to tap into the human condition and the mindset of your army, you can inspire a ragged, mutinous, half-starved army fight.
Napoleon taught tact, insight, and perspective. That was his specialty. In an age of military defectors, Napoleon‘s men banded together.
How:
Empower the pawns. The pawns were underappreciated and the most overutilized in this time. The pawns were either men who had no social standing, were impoverished or were prisoners of war. Napoleon kept morale high by truthfully offering something they all wanted- Freedom.
Create a pipeline from pawn to knight. Doing this creates hunger and pride. This is why Napoleon was able to create the unstoppable force that was known as the French military.
Encourage the bishops to work together, take the best of different individuals and play to their strengths. This tact was not often employed before Napoleon, as these echelons were purchased, given away via status or nepotism. Napoleon poised himself to invade and conquer the neighboring independent states of Europe.
Create doubt within your enemy. Napoleon’s upper echelons understood their value and input- through a cohesive bond, Napoleon’s most apt strategists managed to identify their targets and destroy them. The annihilation of unity through purpose within his enemies, caused Austrian, Russian, and Prussian rifts- causing disharmony and war. France certainly participated in these wars with weaker opponents.
Utilize your “Queen” -
Napoleon and his tight knit inner circle knew that the unity of independent European states threatened and would eventually ruin his powerful empire and there would be no legacy left for him and his successor. He had to destroy their unity before conquering Russia individually. Therefore, he employed the tactic of dividing and conquering.
Since Napoleon participated in a series of coalition wars, he had learned the importance of making a coalition against the common enemy. When an enemy seemed to have many coalition partners against him, Napoleon would scheme a way of dividing the coalition and conquering. This strategy weakened the ability of the enemy to fight effectively with the immense back up from its allies. To fight and conquer Russia, Napoleon devised a scheme of building alliances with the Middle-East powers of the Ottoman Empire. In 1803, Napoleon went to considerable lengths to try and convince the Ottoman Empire to fight against Russia in the Balkans and join his anti-Russian coalition.
Be the King. Kings are the culmination of all of their abilities. The most successful ones properly intercept their enemies through creating and strengthening internal communities.
After three years of negotiations, Napoleon proved his abilities to the Ottoman Empire- precisely on the decisive victory of Austerlitz. This caused a powerful alliance, where Russia and England were conquered.
Napoleon was watchful, insightful, and tactful- he practiced, spoke, documented, and listened to generals older and more experienced than himself. From 1796 when he assumed his first independent military command, until 1809, Napoleon displayed an astonishing near-invincibility in battle and an equally astounding ability to use that battlefield success to compel his enemies to grant him his political objectives.
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