Spiritual elements

Material cause and effect is only the handle, and spiritual cause and effect is the real blade and the decisive factor in an invincible position. So, how to strengthen your spiritual strength?

The golden sentence of "On War": material cause and effect is only the handle, and spiritual cause and effect is the real sword.

Three points.

In a war, the higher the commander's position, the less courage he has, and the more restrained he is when making decisions, because the higher the position, the fewer problems involving personal sacrifice, the more problems involving the survival of others and the safety of all people, and objective things, various situations and various considerations will exert strong pressure on the commander. Does this mean that commanders don't need much courage? Actually, it's not. The author says that in war, you are afraid of things and do bad things a thousand times more than when you are bold.

There is a saying in France: "If you shine in the second place, you will be eclipsed when you rise to the first place." What do you mean? This means that the second person below one person and above ten thousand people is bolder and bolder in handling things, and becomes mediocre or even indecisive after becoming commander in chief.

There is some truth in this statement. Second, there is always a boss standing in front of you when you do something wrong, so you can do it well. The boss, on the other hand, has to bear everything himself, so he may often consider too many things and become a little timid. But as a commander in chief, if you want to be outstanding, you must learn to overcome this. How to overcome it? Is to have enough courage to support him to bear the consequences of his own decisions and make bold decisions under various pressures.

So do entrepreneurs. When they have nothing, they can often make bold decisions. When they achieve certain success, they will cherish feathers more, dare not make bold changes to the enterprise, and worry about how relatives and friends will treat him after failure. But those who really have the wind of generals dare to bear the consequences of change, even if they succeed.

We all know that Masayoshi Son is an extremely successful investor, and even Warren Buffett can only give up sometimes. Son's continued success is due to his extraordinary courage. Only with extraordinary courage can we enter the business field with the highest rate of return one step ahead of others.

During the period of 1996, before the Internet was fully developed, Sun Zhengyi invested $360 million in an unprofitable Internet company.

Almost everyone thinks he is crazy, saying that he is too courageous, and he is not his own startup company, so he invested so much money without anything. But as a result, a few months later, the Internet company went public on NASDAQ in new york, and its share price kept rising. My son sold a small part of his shares and got back $450 million. This company is the famous portal Yahoo.

Moreover, even when the 200 1 global Internet is facing the lowest ebb, Sun Zhengyi is not afraid to overcome the difficulties in the Internet field, because he believes that broadband applications will bring the most valuable business opportunities to the Internet, and others dare to do it. Sure enough, just after 1 year, the second internet climax came soon, from which Sun Zhengyi benefited a lot. In just a few years, Sun Zhengyi has expanded his Internet empire to more than 600 companies around the world, and he has also become a major shareholder of some mainstream IT companies, which is obviously closely related to his extraordinary courage.

In fact, entrepreneurs and military commanders are interlinked in many ways, and enough courage is crucial for both. The book describes the spirit and courage of the commander-in-chief: "The commander-in-chief must rekindle the fire of faith and the light of hope of all his subordinates with his own heart fire and spiritual light, let his heart fire go out in the boundless darkness, ignite the spiritual light, and lead the team to the dawn of victory."

Clausewitz talked about the following points in the morale competition between the enemy and ourselves:

First, be good at using hostility. The war between the enemy and ourselves may be caused by hostility, which is much stronger than "fame and fortune" and "desire for domination" to stimulate a person's morale;

Second, spirit is more influential than matter. The outcome of a large-scale battle has a greater spiritual impact on the losers and winners than the material impact. We should strive for staged victory and form a virtuous circle between victory and high morale. Even if there is a strategic retreat, it should be carried out slowly, while fighting and retreating to avoid damaging the confidence of the army.

Third, break the enemy's "center of gravity". Hitting the key is often the best way to demoralize the enemy. As we often say, "catch the thief first, then be king", killing the core figures can easily tear others apart.

Let's talk about an interesting example to see how the enterprise operates in practical application. Every year's double eleven, double 12, is everyone ready to chop hands? But choosing Tmall or JD.COM is puzzling. Because every year's Double Eleven is the most intense competition between JD.COM and Tmall, the two families have racked their brains to win this war. It is well known that JD. The icon of COM is a dog, while the logo of Tmall is a cat, so many people often laugh at it as a "cat-dog war".

Before the Double Eleven War, banner slogan in JD.COM was circulated on the Internet. COM's office is "spelling double eleven, killing big-faced cats", and Tmall does not show weakness. The banner slogan in their office is "Dragging the cool sky, vowing to turn JD.COM upside down". Although this method has a good sense of humor and ridicule, it is really easier to stimulate the competitive enthusiasm of both employees and is conducive to the realization of team goals.

The above is an example of enterprise competition. Let's talk about an example of boosting morale in a team.

1At the end of 994, when Jin Zhiyang took over the Beijing Guoan team, the Guoan team ranked eighth in the league. In order to change this situation, Jin Zhiyang began to inspire the team's winning confidence from all aspects.

First of all, Jin Zhiyang encouraged Guoan to "always strive for the first place". At that time, some people laughed at their ignorance, but Jin Zhiyang said, if you don't have the idea of fighting for the first place, how can you fight for the first place? Striving for the first place forever is not a specific task, but represents a positive and enterprising spirit. He told the players that this is the spirit of national security. Any competition and any work should be done in this direction. The culture of hard work soon paid off. In the second year of the league, Guoan won the second place.

Secondly, Jin Zhiyang is also very good at boosting everyone's morale before the game. Before international competitions, Jin Zhiyang likes to give patriotic lessons to the players. For example, before the Japanese team, he talked about the Nanjing Massacre. When playing against Premier League powerhouse Arsenal, he talked about the Opium War and treaty of nanking. He said that in front of foreigners, we represent the people of China, and we must not lose face to the people of China. We would rather be kicked to death than scared to death! Our technical level may not be as good as others, but our morale and spirit must surpass them.

Jin Zhiyang has the ability to excite his players. Many of his players said that they were full of energy after listening to Kim's guidance speech outside the court. This is not to say that Jin Zhiyang will only sharpen his sword before the battle. Among the usual coaches, he has his own set of methods. Deep professional skills and support for team members are the foundation of hard work culture.

Jin Zhiyang's leadership method is just as he himself emphasized: "Spirit and morale are the key. Players must have fighting spirit and determination to win, and finally formulate corresponding tactical strategies. "

The cohesion of morale can play a key role not only in the war, but also in the battlefield. In fact, it is also an essential factor to determine success in the process of starting a business. If we can have higher morale than our competitors, it will help strengthen the cohesion of the team and make it easier to beat our competitors.

Moreover, the spirit of generate dying in despair, even if it can't reverse the war, its subsequent psychological effect is positive and meaningful. Clausewitz said in the book: "Even if these last tenacious efforts fail to achieve results, then we can seek the right to future rejuvenation in the glorious destruction."

In China's The Art of War, there is also a saying called "death", that is, "If you don't go, you will die." Desperate is "death", and being trapped is on the verge of extinction. But if used properly, "death" can completely eliminate the confusion and luck of soldiers and achieve twice the result with half the effort, which is what we often say.

The most famous story about the potential of despair is Xiang Yu's "Battle of the Julu". At the end of Qin Dynasty, Qin Ershi sent general Zhang Han to attack Zhao. Zhao retreats, retreats to Julu, is surrounded by Qin Jun, and is named as a general, with Xiang Yu as a lieutenant, and sends someone to save Zhao.

Unexpectedly, after Song Yi arrived in Anyang with his soldiers, they stayed for 46 days. Xiang Yu had no choice but to ask him to cross the river to the north, get to Julu and get in touch with the besieged Zhao army. However, Yi Song had other plans. He wanted the Qin and Zhao armies to be exhausted before marching in order to win. He strictly ordered the army to kill anyone who didn't obey orders, no matter who he was. At the same time, Yi Song invited guests to eat and drink, while soldiers and people were starving.

Xiang Yu couldn't bear it, so he went into the camp and killed him, claiming that he colluded with Qi and turned against Chu, and the king of Chu had a secret order to kill him. These people immediately acclaimed Xiang Yu as the acting general. Xiang Yu reported the news that Yi Song was killed to Chu Huaiwang, and Chu Huaiwang had to formally appoint him as a general. Xiang Yu killed Yi Song, which shocked Chu and made Chu famous all over the world.

After Xiang Yu killed Song Yi, he immediately sent two generals and led 20,000 troops to cross the river to save the giant deer. Knowing that he had won a small victory, after receiving the request for reinforcements, he ordered the whole army to cross the river to rescue Zhao Jun. After the whole army crossed the river, Xiang Yu took a series of decisive actions: sinking all the ships, smashing the cooking pots, burning the campsite, and carrying only three days' dry food to show his determination to fight to the death, and had no intention of retreating. The soldiers of the Chu army saw that the coach was so determined that no one was going to go back alive again. Under the personal command of Xiang Yu, they fought to the death with Qin Jun and defeated Qin Jun.

conclusion

The management methods of many modern enterprises actually come from the army, because the strategic thinking in the army is always overall, and it is a kind of thinking with epistemology and methodology, so it conforms to some management concepts of enterprises. In today's book On War, we summed up three points from the spiritual elements:

1, Courage: Enhance your courage.

2, gas: cohesion team morale.

3. God: Inspire the spirit of swearing to the death

As clausewitz said, "material cause and effect is only the handle, and spiritual cause and effect is the real blade, which is the decisive factor in an invincible position." Now that we understand the importance of spiritual elements, we should learn how to control them. Entrepreneurship, like war, is a road full of thorns, not only for material factors, but more importantly, the spirit is invincible. Therefore, we might as well look for the methodology and related ideas that are also suitable for enterprise development from military theory.