Editorial Review:
Think about strategy and sharpen judgment in an unpredictable environment
Carl von Clausewitz is widely acknowledged as one of the most important of the major strategic theorists; he's been read by Eisenhower, Kissinger, Patton, Chairman Mao, and numerous other leaders. In Clausewitz on Strategy, the Boston Consulting Group's Strategy Institute has excerpted those passages most relevant to business strategy from Clausewitz's classic text On War, the most general, applicable, and enduring work of strategy in the modern West and a source of insight into the nature of conflict, whether on the battlefield or in the boardroom. This book offers Clausewitz's framework for self-education--a way to train the reader's thinking. Clausewitz speaks the mind of the executive, revealing logic that those interested in strategic thinking and practice will find invaluable. He presents unique ideas, such as the idea that friction--unexpected interference--is an intrinsic part of strategy.
The Boston Consulting Group is one of the world's leading management consulting firms whose clients include many of the world's industry leaders. Tiha von Ghyczy (Charlottesville, VA) has been a faculty member and Director of Business Projects at the Darden School of Business since 1996. While with The Boston Consulting Group, he assumed responsibility for the practice groups in manufacturing/time-based competition and high technology. He has published numerous articles and books on vision and strategy. Bolko von Oetinger (Munich, Germany) is a Senior Vice President of BCG. Christopher Bassford (Washington, DC) is presently a Professor of Strategy at the National War College in Washington, DC, and the author of several books, including Clausewitz in English: The Reception of Clausewitz in Britain and America, 1815-1945.
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
3 great points  2007-10-16
(1) If you still don't understand the difference between war and business [or war and anything else], read this book.
(2) If you have a boss who doesn't understand that "a" strategy must always be revised and the test of a great employee is one who always has a Plan B, send him/her a copy.
(3) That book learning isn't the same thing as experience - "Yet this is nothing but wretched book learning." p. 91.
(4)FRICTION! "Friction is what makes the seemingly easy so difficult.", p. 89, a concept before it's time, one you should know well. p. 89 "Rather, the general [and the rest of us trying to do anything] must have knowledge of friction in order to overcome it, where possible, and in order not to expect a level of precision in his operations that simply cannot be achieved owing to this very friction." p.87
(5) the great love affair between Clausewitz and his wife
(6) Negativity capacity - "being at ease when in bafflement or doubt and not seeking escapes at any cost." p. 86 (don't panic when it starts falling apart)
(7) The many times von C mentions "heart" as well as "mind."
(8) and that this great soldier started fighting at 13, died of cholera.
Strategy is one of my top stengths on the StrengthsFinder(r), so to me it is innate. However, that does not mean my FIRST strategy is my only one, or the one that eventually works. In war, love, coaching, or trying to motivate a recalcitrant teenager.
And how's this for an interesting point: "The weaker the defender's morale, the more brazen the attack must be." p. 121
I ordered this book by mistake - well, as von Clausewitz says, if you wish to enter that theater of strategy you "must abandon all hope of finding the certainties and control to which they are accustomed in other pursuits and consider the surrender of such hopes as a rite of passage in strategy."
Many good things happen to the intelligent, experienced, philosophical and seasoned strategist by accident.
Good read.
Perhaps the worst book of its kind I had ever read  2006-02-15
I had read many business strategy books based on the writings of Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Machiavelli, Miyamoto Musashi etc. So bad that this is the worst I had picked. Clausewitz is great, but the authors are real bad in that they try too hard to impress by using superficial, vague, clumsy, English literature type of writing that complicates or even deteriorates Clausewitz's teachings instead of making them into something analytical and well structured, with relevant examples of real business world applications, even if it cant be as useful as the famous BCG Model (Stars, Question Marks, Cash Cows & Dogs). For those really interested in Clausewitz, please read his originals instead of wasting your valuable time on this disorganised and incoherent work of some.....
Dreadful book 2005-08-13
If you have interest in Clausewitz or business strategy, you can do much better buying other books. This is a very poorly written outing, practically incoherent. Embarassingly bad and jumbled. Do not be afraid to read Clausewitz directly: as this book illustrates, there are no easy shortcuts.
Avoid.
A Superb Leadership Resource  2004-10-18
It probably requires having some experience with business strategy before any of Clausewitz's advice can resonant with you. However, for those who have been involved in executive decision processes, Clausewitz's messages are remarkably fresh and insightful (almost two hundred years later). His advice is particularly fascinating in context with the current "Information Age."
Clausewitz's message is simple, but you have to be ready for it to appreciate it. Information will never be complete. Some information will be totally wrong. If you wait for perfect information/intelligence, you will lose (and your competitor will win). In the fog of war, you must find that "faint light" and have the courage to go toward it. Don't wait for the fog to clear, and don't wait for the light to get brighter. It will be too late if you do.
Too often in the Information Age, companies and their executives mistakenly believe that it is possible to get complete and accurate information before making a decision. However, despite vaste improvements in technology, information will never be complete, perfect, or even 100% accurate. Clausewitz understood this almost two centuries ago. He points to what true leaders must have. They must have the ability to detect the most relevant patterns among incomplete and sometimes erroneous information. They must be able to identify the goal (the faint beacon of light). Finally, they must have the courage to focus and align an organization's limited resources to accomplishing this goal. In business speak, business leaders must have a vision and must be willing to take risks to achieve that vision.
This message is hard for some people to take. I guess many are looking for a "how to" book that anyone can use. Clausewitz talks about "genius," and his concept of genius implies that not everyone is up to the challenges of leadship. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it is true. More than anything, this book affirmed beliefs I formed after years of observation, trial, and error.
Some may mistakenly believe that perfect information may not have been possible in Clausewitz's time, but it certainly is today. As a business analysis professional, I can attest that "complete" information is still not a reality. No amount of data mining, neural networks, or statistics can replace the qualities of leadership Clausewitz so clearly and eloquently expresses.
Information certainly has the potential to help make better business decisions, but faith is still required to act. Many of the information tools available today are not used, because our business leaders lack the faith to implement them (they're still waiting for complete information). A great companion to this book (in relation to information and decision making) is Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein.
A shameful endeavor in quick profits 2004-01-22
5 Stars for Clausewitz
0 Stars for the authorsImpression on Clausewitz:
Strategy has been defined as 'the employment of the battle as the means towards the attainment of the object of the war'. Properly speaking it has to do with nothing but the battle, but its theory must include in this consideration the instrument of this real activity -- the armed force -- in itself and in its principal relations, for the battle is fought by it, and shows its effects upon it in turn. It must be well acquainted with the battle itself as far as relates to its possible results, and those mental and moral powers which are the most important in the use of the same. Strategy is the employment of the battle to gain the end of the war; it must therefore give an aim to the whole military action, which must be in accordance with the object of the war; in other words, strategy forms the plan of the war; and to this end it links together the series of acts which are to lead to the final decision, that is to say, it makes the plans for the separate campaigns and regulates the combats to be fought in each. As these are all things which to a great extent can only be determined on conjectures some of which turn out incorrect, while a number of other arrangements pertaining to details cannot be made at all beforehand, it follows, as a matter of course, that strategy must go with the army to the field in order to arrange particulars on the spot, and to make the modifications in the general plan which incessantly become necessary in war. Strategy can therefore never take its hand from the work for a moment. That this, however, has not always been the view taken is evident from the former custom of keeping strategy in the cabinet and not with the army, a thing only allowable if the cabinet is so near to the army that it can be taken for the chief headquarters of the army. Theory will therefore attend on strategy in the determination of its plans, or, as we may more properly say, it will throw a light on things in themselves, and on their relations to each other, and bring out prominently the little that there is of principle or rule. If we recall to mind from the first chapter how many things of the highest importance war touches upon, we may conceive that a consideration of all requires a rare grasp of mind. A prince or general who knows exactly how to organize his war according to his object and means, which does neither too little nor too much, gives by that the greatest proof of his genius. But the effects of this talent are exhibited not so much by the invention of new modes of action, which might strike the eye immediately, as in the successful final result of the whole. It is the exact fulfillment of silent suppositions, it is the noiseless harmony of the whole action which we should admire, and which only makes itself known in the total result. The inquirer who, tracing back from the final result, does not perceive the signs of that harmony is one who is apt to seek for genius where it is not, and where it cannot be found. The means and forms which strategy uses are in fact so extremely simple, so well known by their constant repetition that it only appears ridiculous to sound common sense when it hears critics so frequently speaking of them with high-flown emphasis. Turning a flank, which has been done a thousand times, is regarded here as a proof of the most brilliant genius, there as a proof of the most profound penetration, indeed even of the most comprehensive knowledge. Can there be in the book-world more absurd productions? It is still more ridiculous if, in addition to this, we reflect that the same critic, in accordance with prevalent opinion, excludes all moral forces from theory, and will not allow it to be concerned with anything but the material forces, so that all must be confined to a few mathematical relations of equilibrium and preponderance, of time and space, and a few lines and angles. If it were nothing more than this, then out of such a miserable business there would not be a scientific problem for even a schoolboy. But let us admit: there is no question here about scientific formulas and problems; the relations of material things are all very simple; the right comprehension of the moral forces which come into play is more difficult. Still, even in respect to them, it is only in the highest branches of strategy that moral complications and a great diversity of quantities and relations are to be looked for, only at that point where strategy Impressions on the Authors:
The authors should be banned from all literary circles and their works be renounced as a shameful endeavor in easy profits. In this text they have voided Clausewitz rich text; by presenting the matter in a haphazard; confusing lacking form style and sense.
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