Strategies of the Warring States
Burning the bonds
Buying what the ledger cannot hold
Strategies of the Warring States, Qi IV
The man sent to collect the debts burned the contracts instead. This is about how that apparently pure loss was finally settled.
What actually happened?
Lord Mengchang sent Feng Xuan to Xue to collect debts, and asked before he left what he should buy with the proceeds. Whatever the house is short of, he was told. At Xue, Feng Xuan called the people together, checked the bonds against them, then announced a pardon in his lord's name and burned every contract. The people cheered. Asked what he had bought, he said righteousness, since the house lacked nothing else. Lord Mengchang was displeased. A year later, out of office and back at Xue, he was met a hundred li out by the whole population. Today, he said, I see what you bought for me.
Some assets are not on the books
A debt is a measurable asset and goodwill is not. What Feng Xuan performed was a conversion: a receivable most of which was never coming back, exchanged for something carried at zero and useful in exactly one kind of moment. Whether the trade was right depends on whether you counted that moment.
Over-compensating your earliest users is pure loss in the accounts. When a public crisis lands they are the people speaking for you, and no budget line buys that.
You do not choose when it pays out
He was displeased on the spot and understood a year later. Spending of this kind shares a shape: the cost is now and certain, the return is later and uncertain, and the trigger is usually bad news about you. Which is exactly why it is the first line cut.
A customer team looks most redundant while growth is easy and proves itself the quarter renewals slip. The cuts happen in the first phase.
Feng Xuan did not ask permission
He acted and reported afterwards, which from another angle is exceeding his authority. He could do it because the brief he was given was extremely wide: buy whatever the house is short of. Wide authority and unforeseen action are one thing, not two.
Say use your judgement and you have accepted a choice you would not have made. Taking back control of the detail takes that possibility back with it.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: a spend that shows no return anywhere in the accounts.
Ask first: what is it actually buying, under what conditions does it pay out, and are those conditions likely?
Where it goes wrong: writing off everything unmeasurable as waste; and handing out wide authority while still expecting every step to match what you would have done.
Lines to keep
I bought you righteousness. Your house lacked nothing else.
Today I see what you bought for me.
The cost is now and certain. The payout waits for bad news.
Same situation, other people are asking
There is a line in my budget that earns nothing I can point to.The spend nobody can justify · all 1 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.