I recently had a conversation with a serious business man whom confused the hell out of me for about 10 minutes. He kept using the term "Fire" and reputation as thought they were the same thing!

Then I remembered reading a book some time ago where the author was pontificating about how when Sun Tzu was referring to Fire that it should be interpreated as meaning Repuation for modern business purposes. Sure enough when I asked him had he read the book, he had just finished it!!

This kicked off a series of thoughts in my head about how people try to interpret Sun Tzu for modern business and frequently mis-interpret him. If he said Fire he meant Fire i.e. the stuff that burns you if you put your hand in it, dont try to make it something else.

Yes the principals are the same however to try and take a direct translation and apply it to modern life is lazy and to be blunt stupid. Of course you can come up with similarities and make comparisons but thats about it.

If you want to understand Sun Tzu then you need to put the effort in, not take some shortcut by trying to make direct comparisons between war 2400 years ago and modern business so you dont have to work out what he would have done in your position. Take his treatise into your deepest thoughts and then act with the depth of thinking that he surely did.

When he said set fire to something he meant burn it, nothing more nothing less!

Rant over...