The Firmness of a General

A general skilled in commanding troops: his firmness cannot be broken, and his suppleness cannot be rolled up. Therefore, he can use weakness to overcome strength and softness to overcome firmness. Pure softness and pure weakness—his momentum will inevitably be weakened; pure firmness and pure strength—his momentum will inevitably lead to ruin. Neither partial to softness nor partial to firmness—this is what accords with the constancy of the Way. Modern Application:The previous chapter, “The Strengths of a General,” discussed the completeness of judgment and execution; this chapter deals with a more fundamental tension: neither firmness nor softness is a virtue in itself; “pure firmness” and “pure softness” divorced from context are equally structures of defeat. Zhuge Liang sentences both extremes side by side—“pure softness and pure weakness, his momentum will inevitably be diminished; pure firmness and pure strength, his momentum will inevitably perish”—not to advocate compromise, but to point out an organizational fact: any single-polarized behavioral pattern,......