‘The Art of War’: The greatest strategy book ever written | Roger Martin

Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and moreStrategy advisor Roger Martin explains how 2,000 year old military thinking is useful in modern business strategy.

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Business leaders can gain valuable insights from history’s great military strategists. Roger Martin, an author and the former dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, suggests examining "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu.

Although the text is more than 2,000 years old, Roger argues that it contains timeless philosophy that applies not only to the battlefield, but also to modern business strategy. To Roger, people often think war and business is all about numbers and hard data. But in reality, it’s often just as important to think about more qualitative aspects about your company and its competition. And that’s where philosophy and customer-focused design come into play.

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About Roger Martin:

In 2017, Roger Martin was named the world’s #1 management thinker by Thinkers50, a biannual ranking of the most influential global business thinkers.

Martin is a trusted strategy advisor to the CEOs of companies worldwide including Procter & Gamble, Lego, and Ford.

Martin is a Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto, where he served as dean from 1998-2013. In 2013, he was named global Dean of the Year by the leading business school website, Poets & Quants.

His newest book is A New Way to Think: Your Guide to Superior Managerial Effectiveness. His previous twelve books include When More is Not Better, Creating Great Choices written with Jennifer Riel, Getting Beyond Better written with Sally Osberg, and Playing to Win written with A.G. Lafley, which won the award for Best Book of 2012-13 by the Thinkers50. He has written 32 Harvard Business Review articles.

Martin received his BA from Harvard College, with a concentration in economics, in 1979 and his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1981. He lives in South Florida with his wife, Marie-Louise Skafte.

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