There were, however, many occasions when the French were faced not by one or two but by a whole series of enemy armies within supporting distance of one another. Faced with such a difficult situation, Napoleon often Adopted a second system of manoeuvre – the “strategy of the central position”. Very often under these circumstances the French found themselves operating at a numerical disadvantage against the combined strength of their opponents but could procure superior numbers against any one part of their adversaries’ forces. – THE CAMPAIGNS OF NAPOLEON, DAVID G. CHANDLER, 1966
Business Owner
- Owns a system – Hires people to operate the system
- Can leave their business for a long time and return to find it more profitable
- Technical skills – Accounting/ Sales/ Marketing/ Reading financial statements/ Production/ Management/ Negotiation
- Requirements – Artist of “people skills” – Working with is the hardest
- Ownership or control of systems
- leadership of people
It was this second factor that the system was designed to exploit to the full. “The art of generalship” consists in, when actually inferior in numbers to the enemy (overall), being superior to him on the battlefield.” In brief, Napoleon set himself the task of isolating one part of the enemy armament, concentrating a stronger force to ensure its defeat and if possible its destruction, and then turning with his full strength to attack the second enemy army; that is to say, instead of a single decisive blow, he planned a series of smaller blows against scattered adversaries and set out to destroy them in detail. – THE CAMPAIGNS OF NAPOLEON, DAVID G. CHANDLER, 1966
How could this be done? Once again, the sequence of the Napoleonic attacks reveals the formula. First of all the Emperor would accumulate as much information about the forces facing him from captured newspapers, deserters and most especially from the indications brought in by his probing cavalry patrols. From the data thus provided, he would carefully plot the known dispositions of his foes on the map, and then select the place where their respective army boundaries converged. This was the “Hinge” or “Joint” of the enemy’s strategic dispositions, and as such was vulnerable to attack. This point would be selected by Napoleon for his initial blitzkrieg attack, carried out as often as not at full strength.THE CAMPAIGNS OF NAPOLEON, DAVID G. CHANDLER, 1966
The Business Cashflow Quadrant
- The design and success is about Increasing systems
- Recognize the long-term benefits of using (OP) other people
- OPT – Other’s people time
- OPM – Other people’s money
- Working less & Earning more
- Enjoying more free time
- Hiring more people
- Exploit “OP” – Other people
- Typically (E) “Employees” or (S) “self-employed”
Shielded by the cavalry screen, the French army would perform a crash concentration and fall like a thunderbolt on the handful of troops defending this central point. Invariably this initial onslaught would be successful. Immediately Napoleon had massed his army at this newly captured point, he was master of the “central position” – that is to say, he had successfully interposed his concentrated army between the forces of his enemies who, ideally, would have staggered back under the impact of the surprise blow in such a way as to increase the distance between their respective armies. This would inevitably mean that the foe would have to operate on “exterior lines” (i.e have greater distances to march from one flank to the other) while the better-positioned French would have shorter distances to travel to reach either enemy. THE CAMPAIGNS OF NAPOLEON, DAVID G. CHANDLER, 1966