From Mao Jiu's version of "Longzhong Pair" to talk about strategy formulation

When it comes to strategic planning in history, most people's first choice is Zhuge Liang's "Longzhong Pair" at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. From a factual point of view, although the analysis of the current situation is accurate and the argument is clear, it is still a strategic plan that cannot be fully implemented. First of all, no matter how to "cross the Jingyi" in that era of cold weapons and achieve efficient military coordination between the two fronts, it is only said that the premise of the Northern Expedition of "Foreign Alliance Sun Quan" is not so solid (the two sides have irreconcilable conflicts of interest on the Jingzhou issue). If we open our eyes and look at the plans of other wise men at that time, we will find that Mao Jiu's version of "Longzhong Pair" in the Cao Wei camp is more reasonable in planning and the most thorough implementation.

Mao Jiu had a conversation with Cao Cao, who was acting Yanzhou Mu, in the third year of Chuping (192 AD), and according to the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, the conversation was roughly as follows:

"Today the fall apart, the lords of the country have migrated, the people are in ruins, the famine is exiled, the public family has no savings for the years, and the people have no will to be stable, and it is difficult to last. Nowadays, Yuan Shao and Liu Biao, although the soldiers and the people are strong, they have no worries about the long-term future, and there are no tree builders. The righteous soldiers win, the guards are rich, the son of heaven is ordered not to be subordinate, the cultivation is cultivated, and the livestock and military resources are cultivated, so that hegemony can be achieved. ”

This conversation laid the foundation for Cao Cao's political, economic, and military strategy for a certain period of time, and pointed out the direction for Cao Cao to welcome the emperor, defeat Yuan Shao, conquer Wuhuan, and pacify the north, which can be said to be a top-level strategic plan. In the conversation, Mao Jiu clearly pointed out that at this time, the world is in chaos, people's hearts are floating, and a person with great talent and great ability is needed to clean up the situation, and warlords such as Yuan Shao and Liu Biao seem to be powerful, but there is no long-term plan, and it is difficult to achieve a great cause. The fundamental reason for becoming a great cause is to occupy the moral high ground, to have strength, and if the name is consistent, the great cause can be achieved. Later, Cao Cao also implemented this strategy, welcoming the emperor to Xu, restoring the economy internally, stabilizing the situation, gradually cutting off the warlords externally, and pacifying the north.

Mao Jie's theory also has strong guiding value for today's enterprises to formulate strategic planning.

The first is the question of justice. The success of an enterprise should be able to unite people's hearts internally, enhance organizational capabilities, form a strong internal mobilization ability, and externally be able to expand the territory, improve product quality (service level), and build strong commercial competitiveness and barriers. If you want to unite people's hearts and minds internally and improve organizational capabilities, you must find a grand goal and a just reason for the organization at the beginning of the organization's construction, so as to build your own corporate culture, and through this culture, you can continuously strengthen your own construction and attract more outstanding talents to join. Therefore, building your own culture is often the basis for outlining the strategy, at least the strategic blueprint you outline should be in line with your cultural temperament. Now many companies have slowly understood the importance of culture, but they still do not know the mechanism of cultural formation, just learning from other companies, often have the feeling of Handan toddler. As for how to build culture, we will talk about this in another article.

The second is strength. If the market competition removes the component of luck, many times it is a competition of continuous strength. You have to have a certain amount of capital and have enough economic strength. Pay attention to your own revenue balance, even when expanding rapidly, you must fully plan your own revenue model (expansion can be no profit, but not without profitability). Increase investment in R&D, supply chain, service efficiency/level, etc., improve their competitive dimensions, and avoid indiscriminate homogeneous competition with competitors. Set aside a portion of the cash reserves to deal with the sudden deterioration of the situation, always maintain communication with the capital markets, and start financing at least 6 months in advance. These are all concrete solutions to enhance and maintain their own strength.

Finally, there are the leaders. Speaking of this, it is actually a little less optimistic, because the judgment, adoption and implementation of the strategy are decided by the leaders, his pattern is large, long-term vision, there may be good results, his pattern is small, short-sighted, this strategy is a piece of waste paper and a bunch of nonsense. Similar to Mao Jiu's strategic plan, Frustrated Zhi also proposed, both people invariably proposed to welcome the Son of Heaven to please the courtiers, unfortunately Cao Cao really went to implement, and Yuan Shao only listened to those praise words, as for the words of greeting the Heavenly Son and restoring the society, they did not remember it.

History never repeats itself, it's just the same.