Chapter D8
Conclusion - The myriad hues of strategic choices
As we come to the end of our examination of the Seven Strategy Tools, we can pause to reflect on our learning. Are we to believe that if we apply these seven rules without making a mistake, we will win our legal war? Does this mean that all it takes to win a legal war is to apply one or more of seven strategic tools? The answer to both questions is no.
You do not win a legal war only because you have a good strategy. A strategy is only as effective as the tactics you use to project your power on the actual theatre of battle. We deal with tactics in the next section of the book and I need not say more here. Then again, you have an enemy on the other side also capable of making a good strategy. You can only under estimate him at your peril. This means that any strategy you make needs constant adjustment and adaptation as the war progresses. Every time your enemy adjusts to combat your strategy, you must shift your strategy yet.
The larger issue is that while there are seven rules for strategy, it is not that there are only seven strategic paths available to you in any and every legal war. Its simple arithmetic. If you recall your Permutation and Combination lessons from school, you will remember that the combination of seven rules taken seven at a time is a product of 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 5040. If you add the complex additional sub options emerging from the seven main rules, your strategic choices are truly limitless. In the face of this myriad vibgyor of choice, how are you to proceed?
I wouldn’t know how to answer this question. You can spend a lifetime studying litigation strategy and success would still be an elusive goddess. I tried to compensate for my continuing struggle by setting up a priority list. Other things being equal, which strategy rule takes precedence over which, and so on till I have a proper pecking order of rules. In my own limited experience, I came up with the following order of priority.
Force levels is the place to start. Which broad brushstroke strategy you evolve really depends on the Force Levels arrayed on the battlefield. Do you encircle, attack, divide your forces, stand still or merely circumvent? The choice you make sets up the agenda for both armies. It also pretty much dictates what happens next in the wide theatre of events. To that substantial extent, available force levels also limit everyone’s choices.
Once agendas have been set, you must decide what you are to attack if you are to attack at all. What is your Priority of Targets? Battles are won or lost on what is attacked. That said, its not enough to decide what to attack: you must also decide how intensely you will attack your chosen targets. In turn, that does not depend on your whim: it depends on your capacity to attack. In that sense, your third consideration is not a strategic choice, it’s a strategic limitation. In all cases, you must now match the Magnitude of Engagement to your available resources.
This takes you to the fourth rule of war strategy. When you know your Magnitude of engagement, you must now proceed to Optimize Logistics. Wars are won and lost on logistics. You should not attack till your logistics plan is frozen. Next, you must decide how far you will push your attack. Here, you encounter your next strategic limitation. You must never plan Costly Annihilation. Annihilations are expensive and a successful strategy will try and find Quick Results and then disengage. Other things being equal, the strategy that brings quicker results is the way to go. The problem of course is that if speed is too high on the priority list, you may never get your result. This is why I put speed at only the second lowest priority. Finally, the remaining rule on managing downside risk now appears. It is time to evaluate the downside risk of possible entanglement. You must now deploy your strategy to fix the problem, never to get bogged down.
Let us see how this priority list of seven strategic rules was applied in a case we have studied so intensely in these pages already:
The Weizmann case
The Weizmann case is by now too familiar for me to repeat the essential facts again. Let us very quickly examine the manner in which Weizmann set up its strategy to dealing with Gupta and his promoter band.
Weizmann’s first strategic priority was to evaluate Force Levels. With fifteen percent of the equity in his hands, a sympathetic BIFR, and public shareholders capable of being manipulated, Gupta was certainly not overwhelmingly weaker than Weizmann. At the same time, Weizmann was substantially stronger because it was the majority shareholder, had deep pockets, a strong legal case and great motivation to fight. It was a perfect case for attcking and Weizmann chose to attack.
Next, Weizmann needed to determine its priority of targets. We have already discussed this matter in Chapter C5. To quickly recapitulate, Weizmann attacked Gupta’s plans and pre-empted him, it attacked his allies and isolated him, it attacked his loyalists within the company and eroded his resource base but it never attacked his citadel. In each element of this strategy, it acted impeccably.
This brought on the issue of Magnitude of Engagement. Since Weizmann was committed to India and had deep pockets, it placed no limits on the Magnitude of Engagement. That did not mean it wanted to throw away resources. Weizmann dealt with the strategic issue on Optimizing Logistics. We have looked at this matter in Chapter A5 when we discussed the Five Conditions Precedent. In essence, Weizmann mobilized a large war machine and this was one of the central reasons why it won.
Next, Weizmann dealt with the ever-looming problem of Costly Annihilation. In this case, the answer was simple. If you do not threaten annihilation, you are unlikely to risk it either. Weizmann did not attack Gupta’s shareholding in the company, it did not launch any criminal cases against him and it did not try and rob him of his basic livelihood when he started a small side business to help pay the bills.
Weizmann also took a view on seeking Quick Results. When the war began, it moved very quickly take control of the company, which is about as quick as any result can be achieved. When Weismann successfully managed to control the company much of the battle was won, even before it had started. It was now a matter of digging one’s heels in and stemming the tide of counter attack. Since it had what it wanted, it decided to down grade the Magnitude of Engagement to what was needed to preserve its gains. In this way, it also avoided Entanglement.
In this way, Weizmann correctly applied the Seven Strategies and achieved its objectives.
The difficulty with strategic rules is that they are never immutable. The problem with priority lists is that there is always something else that queers the pitch. The secret is to know when a rule is immutable and when it is not.