Front-line strategy draws the critical distinction between competition and conflict. Sun Tzu taught that the easiest way to win in competition is to avoid conflict. Conflict usually arises only from a failure of strategic awareness.

This doesn't come from strategic planning alone. If every situation could be planned, you wouldn't need any training in strategic cognition. Unfortunately, we all live increasingly on the front lines of competition where the pace of change allows for less and less planning.

Whether you realize it or not, the challenges of an increasingly competitive world are shaping your life. To be successful over the long term, good planning skills are not enough. You need to know how to make the skills to understand your competitive position, to advance your position, and and to deal with unforeseeable situations. In the science of strategy, we call decision-making in these three areas position awareness, opportunity development, and situation response. As the Roman strategist Flavius Vegetius Renatus said, “Warriors are not born; they are trained.”

What do you want? To get a pay raise? To settle a dispute? To make a sale? To be successful in your career? To start a business? To find a spouse? To become better known? To be recognized for your work? Your success in any of these areas cannot come from simply planning and working through your plans. Planning alone won't get them for you because you cannot know where and when your opportunities will arise.

As you start learning Sun Tzu's classical approach to developing strategic reflexes, you begin to understand why your gut instincts are often right. Your hard-won knowledge from experience that gave you those gut instincts fit into a larger, more comprehensive picture. Wouldn't it be nice to have a set of tools to help you see more opportunities and take more effective actions? Start learning what you are missing with a FREE trial of our on-line training.