Chapter 13. Landscapes as Force Multipliers
“During a crisis, when you are caught up in a battle that will determine the outcome of the war” wrote Fujifilm CEO Shigetaka Komori, the leader’s “priority [is] “to read the situation you are in [and understand] right now, at this very moment, what is it you are confronting? What exactly is happening?” In high-intensity situations — such as a battle for survival — leaders must deal with things quickly, but this is often made more difficult as they only have “fragmentary and incomplete” information. Yet, leaders who wait for complete information before acting may find that the situation has already resolved itself against them. Therefore, “just reading the information available on the surface” is not enough; a leader must also ‘dive deep and read the fragments’ to “get a picture of the whole and grasp its essential nature”. “Anyone who thinks this is too much trouble” warned Komori “isn’t qualified to be a leader”.[1]
Komori’s call for ‘reading the situation’ echoes the Chinese philosophical tradition of cultivating awareness of current conditions in order to identify shi[2] — the potential one can harness. To illustrate this picture a giant boulder lying flat on the ground. Now picture the same boulder being rolled downhill. The boulder itself has not changed, but its potential — which comes from its shape and size — has been released. This is what Sun Tzu meant when he wrote in The Art of War that the expert commander cultivates potential from conditions and waits for the right moment to release it. One cannot create something out of nothing. Instead, one must learn to harness potential (or shi) from the conditions that surround you. And for that, one must first be able to see — or in the words of Komori — ‘read’ the Landscape.
Fig. 28: Using the Landscape as a Force Multiplier
Maps enable one to take in a large terrain and consider conditions beyond the immediate vicinity. This is why leaders have used maps for millennia to more clearly see the Landscape they’re in. The earliest known map from around 27,000[3] years ago was carved into a mammoth tusk and maps have been used widely ever since — from Babylon and China to Greece and Rome, right up to today where maps continue to benefit from advances in technology (Google Earth). Maps endure because they’re a useful aide to decision-making. They enable us to see where we are and where our options for purposeful movement through an unfamiliar Landscape are. With a map in hand we’re not limited to just one, pre-determined path, we have an endless variety of options and we can use the map to track our progress and find other paths if our way ahead is blocked.
The Case of Themistocles[4]
In 480 BCE Persia’s king of kings, Xerxes launched his (second) invasion of Greece ahead of an army the size of which the ancient world had never seen. In response, thirty Greek states formed a Congress to consider their options. The Peloponnesians, from the southern peninsula, argued for the Greek forces to fall back and establish a line of defence on the Isthmus of Corinth — a narrow neck of land linking the peninsula with central Greece. Unsurprisingly, the Phocians and Locrians, from the central Greek states, as well as Macedonians and Thessalians from the North rejected this proposal, arguing that it would leave their states at the mercy of the invading Persians. The Congress also considered a Thessalian proposal to send an allied force of 10,000 men North to the Vale of Tempe, a deep gorge between two mountains (Olympus and Ossa) through which the Persian army would have to pass. However, the Macedonian king Alexander warned of a secret pass around those mountains that, should the Persians come to learn of it, would enable the Persians to by-pass the Vale and any Greek army waiting there, vainly, in ambush.
Fig. 29: Anticipating the Persian Attack
Listening attentively was Themistocles, Athen’s foremost politician and general. Eventually he rose and, with the aid of the map, explained how he saw the coming invasion: The Persians would attack from the North by sea and land with the aim of conquering the great city-states of Thebes and Athens. This meant the Persian navy would have to sail through the Straits at Cape Artemisium and the Persian army, even if it discovered Alexander’s secret route through the Vale of Tempe, would still have to pass through a narrow coastal passage at Thermopylae (the “Hot Gates” due to the presence of sulphur springs nearby). It was here, Themistocles proposed, that the Greeks could use the Landscape to negate the Persian’s numerical advantage.
Themistocles asked Leonidas, the king of the Spartans, to set an ambush for the Persians at Thermopylae, a narrow pass with a sheer drop to the Aegean Sea on one side and near-impassable mountain terrain on the other. This Landscape, Themistocles reasoned, would act as a force multiplier. It would enable a small force to hold the advance of the Persian army long enough for the rest of the Greek states to have time to fully-mobilise. Themistocles also proposed to lead his Athenian fleet North and block the Persian navy at Artemisium and cut off the supply lines their massive army depended on. Xerxes, suggested the Athenian General, would either have to break through at Thermopylae quickly or be forced to retreat, lest he had to face the fully-mobilised Greek states marching North to confront his army that would be struggling with serious logistical problems.
Fig. 30: Themistocles’ Moves at Thermopylae and Artemisium
With the aid of a map the Greeks could:
- Identify multiple places WHERE they could mount a defence (on the Isthmus of Corinth, in the Vale of Tempe, or at the passes of Thermopylae and Artemisium)
- Discuss WHY “here over there” (Thermopylae over the Vale to avoid being out-flanked and Thermopylae over the retreat to Isthmus as that would have split the Greeks)
- Agree HOW to execute these moves (the Spartans to set an ambush at Thermopylae and the Athenians would block the Persian supply routes at Artemisium).
With a map and some local knowledge the Greeks were able to turn their Landscape into a weapon. Thermopylae would be defended by a relatively small force of 7,000 men from the northern states and 300 Spartan Hoplites — a fierce and professional fighting force led by King Leonidas, who would use the narrow pass to negate the Persian’s numerical advantage by forcing them through this bottleneck.[5] And every Landscape has such ‘potential’ (shi) that can be harnessed. All it takes is a map to see the Landscape and some discussion to agree about how to exploit it.
1 Innovating Out of Crisis: How Fujifilm Survived (and Thrived) As Its Core Business Was Vanishing. Shigetaka Komori (2015) p105 (Also see Book One, Chapter 5)
2 Seek Book One, chapter 8.
3 http://www.e-perimetron.org/Vol_2_2/Wolodchenko_Forner.pdf
4 This is a slightly more detailed rendition of the well-known story Simon Wardley has used to explain the utility of maps in developing (military) strategy, which can be watched here (from 08:25, although the entire video is worth watching as a great introduction to Wardley Mapping): https://vimeo.com/189984496
5 We will revisit this battle in Book Five to consider the counter-moves the Persians then made.
