Sun Tzu
Know both, and know which is harder
Your own numbers are the flattered ones
Art of War, Attack by Stratagem / Estimates
Quoted for two thousand years, usually as a case for research. The half everybody skips is the one about yourself.
What actually happened?
The Estimates chapter is not a maxim, it is a form to fill in: five dimensions and seven comparisons — whose ruler has the way, whose commanders are abler, who has the ground and the season, whose discipline is enforced, whose troops are stronger, whose are better drilled, whose rewards and punishments are clear. Then a coldly practical conclusion: if the count comes out favourable, fight; if it does not, don't. He called it reckoning in the temple — settle it before you decide whether to go at all.
Knowing is a filled-in table, not an impression
'I have a rough sense of the competition' is not knowing. The value of a list of comparisons is that it forces out the row you cannot answer, and the row you cannot answer is usually the one that decides it.
Nobody could say what their support costs per account were. That empty cell was the entire margin difference.
Your own side is the harder half
Their information is outside you and can be gone and found. Yours has been through several people who each had a reason to round it kindly. The order in the sentence puts them first; the difficulty runs the other way.
The competitor's timeline came from their own blog. His own timeline came from a manager reporting to the person who set it.
The count has to be allowed to say no
More reckoning wins, less reckoning loses. The point of the exercise is not to find a way to win; it is that it can output 'this one should not be fought'. A process that ends in action whatever it computes is not a decision, it is a ceremony.
Every quarterly review ended with the same launch date. The review was not deciding anything and everyone knew it.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: about to commit to something competitive on the strength of a general sense.
Ask first: which rows can you actually fill in, and which is blank? Go and fill the blank one before anything else.
Where it goes wrong: turning it into endless analysis — the count has a deadline, and 'we cannot know' is itself a row.
Lines to keep
More reckoning wins. Less reckoning loses.
Theirs is outside and findable. Yours has been through people.
A process that ends in action whatever it computes is a ceremony.
Same situation, other people are asking
If this is wrong, is there a way back?It starts on Monday and I'm bracing myself. Is that the problem?I think I know them well enough. Do I know my own side?There is no undo on this one. How long should I stand at the edge?A decision I can't undo · all 11 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.