apply-tactical-adaptation

Apply Tactical Adaptation

Diagnose which of the nine strategic situations you occupy, apply the situation-specific response rather than a generic one, adapt tactics freely while holding strategy constant, and eliminate the five commander faults that systematically cause strategic failure.

Why This Is Best Practice

Origin: Chapter 8 of The Art of War — Jiu Bian (九變, Nine Variations) — argues that rigid tactics applied to variable situations is a fundamental failure mode: "He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain." Chapter 11 (Nine Situations / Nine Grounds) provides the diagnostic framework: each of nine distinct strategic situations has a specific optimal response. A commander who cannot diagnose their situation cannot select the correct response.

Adopted by: Eisenhower's Allied command in WWII was distinguished by tactical adaptation within a fixed strategic objective — the liberation of Europe. The tactical execution varied enormously by terrain, season, and opponent disposition; the strategic objective did not waver. Modern management literature operationalises this as "strategic constancy, tactical flexibility" (Lafley & Martin, Playing to Win, 2013). Startup pivots are the business equivalent: the strategy (solve this problem for this customer) may remain constant; the tactic (product form, pricing model, channel) adapts to what actually works.

Impact: Tactical rigidity produces catastrophic results when circumstances change. A negotiation tactic that works when you have leverage fails when you don't. A sales approach that works in growth markets fails in contracting ones. A product strategy that works in early adoption fails in the mainstream. Diagnosing the situation and selecting the situation-appropriate response produces higher win rates than any universal tactic applied regardless of context.

Why best: The nine situations framework provides a diagnostic that converts a vague sense that "something is different" into a specific situation classification with a prescribed response. The five commander faults provide a pre-mortem checklist for leadership failure modes that are predictable, identifiable in advance, and correctable. Together they enable structured adaptation rather than reactive scrambling.

Sources: Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Giles trans. 1910) — Ch.8 (Nine Variations), Ch.11 (Nine Situations); Lafley & Martin, Playing to Win (2013) — strategic constancy, tactical flexibility; Klein, Sources of Power (1999) — naturalistic decision-making under pressure; Weick, Sensemaking in Organizations (1995) — situation diagnosis

Steps

Step 1: Diagnose your current situation from the nine grounds

Sun Tzu identifies nine strategic situations (九地), each requiring a distinct response. Match your current position to one:

Situation	Military description	Business equivalent	Optimal response
Dispersive ground (散地)	Fighting on home territory	Early-stage, no commitment from stakeholders	Do not fight; build alignment before committing
Facile ground (輕地)	Shallow penetration of opponent's territory	Early market entry; customers not yet committed to you or incumbent	Do not stop; maintain momentum; secure early wins fast
Contentious ground (爭地)	Ground of strategic value to both sides	Key account, partnership, or market both sides are actively pursuing	Race to get there first; speed of commitment is decisive
Open ground (交地)	Ground where both sides can move freely	Commodity market; no structural barriers; both sides can compete	Connect with allies; build partnerships; do not compete alone
Intersecting ground (衢地)	Ground adjoining multiple states	Platform or ecosystem position with multiple stakeholder groups	Win relationships with key third parties before the opponent does
Serious ground (重地)	Deep inside opponent's territory	Well into a long sales cycle, a major negotiation, or an expansion campaign	Sustain; do not pause or show hesitation; plunder the territory
Difficult ground (圮地)	Mountains, marshes, impassable terrain	Market with structural obstacles: regulatory, technical, distribution	Move through fast; do not linger; minimise exposure
Encircled ground (圍地)	Narrow passages, surrounded	Trapped negotiation; market where competitor has surrounded your position	Scheme your way out; use ingenuity, not force
Desperate ground (死地)	Back against the wall; no retreat	Last negotiation round, final capital, existential threat	Fight with everything; do not conserve resources; survival requires full commitment

Step 2: Apply the situation-appropriate response

Each situation has a single primary response principle. Applying the wrong principle to the wrong situation is worse than having no principle at all.

Specific responses by situation:

Dispersive ground: Do not commit resources to a campaign until the home base is aligned and the internal support is secured. Launching externally from a divided organisation produces a campaign that collapses when internal disagreement surfaces at a critical moment.

Facile ground: Maintain momentum. Early market entry is fragile — the customers and partnerships secured early define the trajectory. Stop and the incumbent fills the space.

Contentious ground: Speed is the only variable that matters. When both sides are racing for the same high-value position, the first to commit secures the position. Deliberation is surrender.

Open ground: Build alliances before competing. On open terrain, unilateral competition is less effective than a coalition that controls key relationships and channels.

Intersecting ground: Win the third parties. On platform and ecosystem terrain, the party with the most partner relationships shapes the rules. Prioritise partner relationships over direct customer acquisition in this situation.

Serious ground: Sustain and push deeper. Hesitating on serious ground signals weakness and invites the incumbent to pressure you. Keep moving, keep closing, keep expanding.

Difficult ground: Move through fast, do not linger. A prolonged campaign in a structurally difficult market exhausts resources without producing a sustainable position.

Encircled ground: Scheme, do not force. When encircled — surrounded by a competitor in a negotiation corner, running out of options — force will fail. Ingenuity, coalition-building, and unexpected moves open the encirclement.

Desperate ground: Fight with full commitment, without reservation. The knowledge of no retreat is the source of the maximum effort that desperate ground requires. Conserving resources in a desperate situation is the mistake — you will not have them when you need them most.

Step 3: Apply the nine variations — know which routes not to take

Chapter 8 identifies a complementary principle: there are always routes not worth marching, towns not worth attacking, positions not worth contesting, and commands not worth obeying — even if they appear to lead toward the objective.

For each current engagement, ask:

• Route not worth marching: Is there a path toward the objective that costs more in resources and risk than the value it captures? Identify and eliminate it.
• Town not worth attacking: Is there a contested position that seems valuable but is strategically irrelevant to the core objective? Stop contesting it.
• Position not worth contesting: Is there a deal, account, or market where the cost of winning exceeds the value of the prize? Concede it explicitly.
• Command not worth obeying: Is there an instruction — from leadership, from convention, from the playbook — that is wrong for this specific situation? Adapt.

The nine variations are not disobedience; they are situation-specific judgment that overrides generic rules when the situation demands it.

Step 4: Audit for the five dangerous commander faults

Sun Tzu identifies five personality or decision-making faults that reliably produce strategic failure. Check each against your current leadership posture:

Fault	Description	Business failure mode
Recklessness (必死)	Eagerness to fight without regard for risk	Launching before product-market fit; committing resources without sufficient势
Cowardice (必生)	Excessive caution that prevents decisive action	Waiting too long to pivot; avoiding the decisive negotiation; missing the 势 release moment
Quick temper (忿速)	Susceptibility to provocation; emotional decision-making	Responding to a competitor's provocation with a reactive move that breaks the strategic plan
Excessive honour (廉潔)	Sensitivity to reputation that prevents pragmatic decisions	Refusing to cut losses, admit a product is wrong, or exit a market because of ego
Excessive care for followers (愛民)	Over-prioritising people welfare in ways that compromise strategic execution	Avoiding necessary decisions (layoffs, pivots, accountability) because of discomfort

Rate yourself and your leadership team on each fault (1 = not present, 5 = consistently present). Any fault rated 4–5 is a strategic risk that must be actively managed.

Step 5: Hold strategy constant; adapt tactics freely

The discipline of tactical adaptation requires distinguishing strategy (the enduring objective) from tactics (the current execution approach):

• Strategy: Which customers, which problem, which competitive position, which market
• Tactics: Product form, pricing model, channel, sales process, partnership structure, messaging

When circumstances change, adapt tactics first before reconsidering strategy. Most perceived "strategic" failures are actually tactical failures applied to the wrong situation. A company that changes its strategy every quarter when tactics are not working has confused the two.

Change strategy only when: the fundamental assumption about the customer, the problem, or the competitive position has proven invalid — not when a specific tactic is not working.

Rules

• Diagnose before responding. The situation determines the optimal response. Acting without diagnosis produces effort applied to the wrong approach.
• The nine situations are mutually exclusive: you occupy one at a time. Do not apply multiple situation-responses simultaneously — they will conflict.
• Audit commander faults regularly, not only in crisis. Faults are personality-level patterns; they appear in normal operations before they cause strategic failures.
• Adapt tactics without abandoning strategy. The discipline is knowing which is which. When in doubt: is the objective still right? If yes, change the approach. If no, reconsider the strategy.
• Desperate ground demands full commitment. The worst response to a desperate situation is partial commitment. All-in effort on desperate ground occasionally produces survival. Half-in effort produces certain failure.

Examples

Startup on encircled ground (funding nearly exhausted, incumbent moving): Situation diagnosis: encircled ground. Response: scheme, not force. Tactics: instead of burning remaining capital on direct sales, pivot to a partnership offer to the incumbent — convert potential destruction into a strategic partnership or acquisition conversation. The encircled party has one asset the incumbent values: the technology and team the incumbent would otherwise need to build. Use that asset to negotiate an exit from the encirclement.

Enterprise sales team on contentious ground (competitive deal): Both vendors in final-stage evaluation. Situation: contentious ground — whoever commits the key executive relationship first secures the deal. Tactic: escalate executive engagement immediately, not at the end of the sales process. Get your CEO on a call with the customer's CEO before the decision. Speed of executive commitment is the only tactical variable that matters on contentious ground.

Commander fault — excessive honour causing strategic failure: A founder refuses to pivot a product that is clearly not working because they have publicly committed to the original vision. Fault: excessive honour (廉潔). The reputation cost of admitting the pivot is smaller than the capital cost of continuing with the wrong product. Address the fault directly: the pivot is the strategically correct move; announce it with conviction rather than defensiveness.

Common Mistakes

Applying a universal tactic regardless of situation: Using the same negotiation approach whether you have maximum leverage or no leverage. Using the same sales process in a competitive situation and an uncontested one. Situation diagnosis prevents this.

Confusing difficult ground for desperate ground: Difficult ground requires fast passage; desperate ground requires full commitment. Over-committing to a difficult situation (treating it as desperate) burns resources on a structurally unfavourable market. Under-committing to desperate ground (treating it as merely difficult) produces the worst outcome.

Diagnosing the situation and then reverting to the default tactic: The diagnosis step is only valuable if it changes the response. If you diagnose "encircled ground" and then proceed with your standard direct-confrontation approach, the diagnosis produced no value.

Ignoring commander faults until they cause failure: The five faults are predictable. They do not emerge only in crisis — they are visible in normal decision-making, hiring patterns, and meeting dynamics. Identify them before they cause a strategic failure.

Changing strategy when tactics are the problem: A product that is not selling is usually a sales/marketing tactics failure, not a strategy failure. Changing the target customer, the market, or the value proposition (strategy) before exhausting tactical adaptations wastes the platform investment.