Sun Tzu on putting your effort where resistance is weakest. From The Art of War by Sun Tzu, about the 5th century BC.
Chapter 6 of The Art of War, credited to Sun Tzu, starts from a plain fact. Nobody is strong everywhere.
An army that guards its front thins its rear. Strengthen the left, and the right grows weak. Try to guard every point at once, and you are weak at every point.
So the question is never only how hard to push. It is where.
Chapter 6 of The Art of War says no one is strong everywhere, and the way is to avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak. In 354 BC, Wei besieged the capital of Zhao. Sun Bin of Qi marched on Wei’s own capital instead, left to the old and weak, and Wei, rushing home, was beaten at Guiling.
Don’t push harder on the strongest wall; find the part that gives. Practical advice: when one door is shut, list the smaller asks the other side can easily grant.
Likely, on the evidence · checked against 4 sourcesList three smaller asks the other side could easily say yes to.
“My job offer’s salary is fixed. What else can I negotiate that they might actually give?”
Negotiate my job offer, with a mentor playing the other person. →
Push Where It Gives and the other 11 ideas of The Art of War, a minute at a time.
Download on theApp StoreEvery idea is drawn from the public-domain text, and its names, dates and quotes are checked against the sources listed with it. The paintings are made for Counsel; they show the scene, not a historical record.
