Keep Your Enemy on the Defense, Play on Their Side of the Field - Business, Sports, Politics, War

If you've ever played soccer, American football, or other similar sports with goals on each side of the field, then you probably realized it's much better to keep your offense pressing the defense of the opponent and keeping the game on their side of the court or field. In doing this you have a more likelihood of scoring a goal, and you are better able to prevent attacks on your own goal. Let's go ahead and stop right here, and call this theory; "the best defense is a good offense."

Next, there is something that is uniquely and inherently problematic about always being on the offense. When you are always on the offense you hone your skills on attack strategies, and you aren't very good at defense of strategies. Now then, the reason that we have a federal government is to pool the resources of the states for our common defense; in other words, to protect the American people from a foreign invasions or attack.

Since we are the greatest nation ever created in the history of mankind with the greatest wealth, and therefore currently we have the strongest and most powerful military in the solar system, it makes sense to position that military in such a way to provide for our common defense in such a robust fashion that no one would ever even attempt to think about attacking our goal on the side of the field or in this case on our side of the planet.

Americans don't ever believe that an enemy army might come into their cities or bomb their cities using advanced weaponry, but with our borders so open and unprotected - US citizens would be naïve to assume they are safe. The reality is no country is safe on a planet with humans organizing against your best interests. We have enemies of the United States abroad, which are coming together and uniting against us as their common enemy. Therefore, it is time not only to protect the European continent from their enemies, to protect our allies in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, but also to protect our own borders.

You see, we have a lot to protect here, and being such a great nation we have a lot to lose. Therefore it is absolutely incomprehensible that the leadership of this great nation does not do more to provide an ironclad defense with every single possible technology known to humans and beyond to protect all we are and all we've built. Anything less than absolute 100% security for this nation is unacceptable. We did not come this far to throw it all away on a wing and a prayer. Yes, we should play on the other side of the field, but we should also have extra men on the field for our defense, because we are the ones making the rules and this is our game to play. We must play to win!

What is the Wisest Thing to Do in Times of Serious Financial Distress and Political Confusion?

In times of distress it is good and wise and sensible to call on the Lord God and know that He hears and answers. The Psalmist is in distress and I writing from the first Song of Ascent in Psalm 120. Do turn to it as there is wisdom and insight and discernment in these sentences.

Now, do not write this off as being totally irrelevant. Over these next weeks and months we are going to need this help and advice.

This calls for a special quality of leadership and such leadership is scarce in these present times.

But, and we need to know and keep remembering this, when we think of Jesus weeping over the city, and His cries at the foot of the mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane, these significant spiritual incidents did not mean that the burden was lifted. Jesus wept and prayed and went on to face the Cross.

If God does not remove the burden, we know that He will give us the strength to carry that burden. Jesus was so often confronted with the unknown in His Humanity and no more so that when He rides down the Mount of Olives.

The Psalmist here has something very specific in mind as he refers to lying lips and deceitful tongues. Jesus had to face both these when He underwent that inquisition.

This man has obviously been the victim of lying and deceit. We can identify with that. It is always good to get away from that type of thing and that type of person.

He is in emotional pain and expresses it. He releases it and he does not bottle it up. He does not pretend that he did not have these feelings. He is a victim of all this. Jesus frequently expressed His feelings.

The writer turns away from the lies he has heard and approaches God and His truth. The more disillusioned we become with the world the more motivated we will be to pursue the Christian way.

Lies and deceit are commonplace. That is a painful fact we have to accept. That is not being negative. It is just being realistic. There are times when we have to have sufficient courage to face sin and even the consequences of sin and deal with the situation as it really is and not as we would like it to be!

But God has sharp arrows which he aims at those who persist in lying and deceitfulness. The Psalmist renounces all that and walks away from it, and that would be sensible practical advice for any man.

People's words can be like sharp arrows piercing our hearts, and there are times when God's sharp arrows, His judgments, touch those who touch and hurt us. I have seen this happen!

The people of Meshech lived between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and the people of Kedar were nomadic Arabs. The picture is that of a barbarian society which was strange and hostile, and not what God intended man to be.

People were warring against the Psalmist, and he knew he was a man of peace, and he is looking to see God at work in things present. This leader was different from everyone else!

His pain and upset is leading him from placing too much confidence in people to confidence in God. When leaders place their confidence in Almighty God they will be equipped to lead people in ways that many people really want to be led.

Sandy Shaw

Sandy Shaw is Pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship, Chaplain at Inverness Prison, and Nairn Academy, and serves on The Children's Panel in Scotland, and has travelled extensively over these past years teaching, speaking, in America, Canada, South Africa, Australia, making 12 visits to Israel conducting Tours and Pilgrimages, and most recently in Uganda and Kenya, ministering at Pastors and Leaders Seminars, in the poor areas surrounding Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.

Power And Politics In Organisations

In every business power and politics will be used by its members for many and different reasons, either for their personal benefit or for the benefit of their business. If you want to succeed as a business owner and grow your business, being able to control power and politics in your business is a necessity for the survival of your business. To do that, you need to know why power and politics exists in organizations, why they are needed by managers and how to use them.

How Power and Politics exists

When involved in managerial work, you will certainly be involved in power and politics. People that use politics are able to influence other people and end up taking a greater share of the rewards made available. This exists both in the business world and our everyday life. Such people end up taking a greater share of the rewards simply because goods and services are scarce. We all have similar needs but few resources exist to satisfy everyone. For example, you want music in the office but i don't, both parties cannot have what they want and only the most powerful will get what he/she needs.

Each member of a business will either pursue rewards for himself or the department he belong to. Thus, a certain level of competition will exist in any organization and the members will use politics to get what they want. Those that use politics the best will usually have the higher power too. Thus, the ability to cope with politics when managing to manage is required.

Humans, are strategic animals, they have to cooperate and compete with others at the same time, both at work and outside it, in order to gain material and intangible rewards. This system creates an automatic control mechanism and a reward ladder at the same time. For example, new workers hired by a firm, have to work together in order to complete projects that can be accomplished only in groups, and at the same time each one is a competitor to each other because not everyone will be promoted or stay with the firm.

Why They Are Needed By Managers.

All businesses, small and big, will involve a high degree of ambiguity and uncertainty. This makes it impossible for anyone to have the full facts of a situation, understand what is going on at any given time or predict the outcome of any action taken. Managers depend on others and are required to use power and politics to influence and manipulate others central to their work so that an outcome they need can be achieved. It is hard for just one man/woman to undertake all the operations of the business. Depending on others, through direct orders, is not as effective because people feel pushed to do their work. Having people work because they actually want to and enjoy their work is much more productive and effective. Managers should also engage in micro politics to make sure that employees have a balanced competition and co-operation with each other, in order for productive and cooperative work to be achieved.

People, who are responsible and valuable in decreasing uncertainties in a business, will be well placed the next time a promotion comes up or a smart new office becomes available. Senior managers will listen to them and their influence and their likely further succeeding in micro political activity will be enhanced when dealing with a strategic uncertainty. They are well placed for achieving such successes, advance their power, and gain further rewards in the future. On the other hand, uncertainties change all the time, thus, people responsible for them change too and so does their place in the business. Also, such people may be replaced by other people who are equally able to handle uncertain situations. As a result, individuals currently in power may not continue to be in the future.

For this reason, People will not pursue power just for obtaining immediate resources like money, status and general 'comforts of life' but also to put themselves in a position whereby they will be able to obtain whatever they want in the future. To have power is the potential to do better in the future.

Methods Or Tactics For Micro Political Success:

Doing deals and making exchanges - Strategic exchanges, minor or major that play a part in advancing your career or life strategy.

Seeking patron - Establishing relationships with more powerful people.

Making alliances - Team up with selected colleagues.

Conspiring - Exploit certain positions you may have.

Mobilizing groups and assuming informal leadership roles.

Making strategic retreats - Taking a step backwards if identifying an immediate advantage potentially comprising long term success.

Using charm and skills of persuasion - Efforts to repair relationships.

Networking.

Talent spotting, selective recruitment and adopting proteges - Bringing talented people with you.

Gathering information that may actually or potentially be used against a rival or otherwise to advance one's interests.

Such methods, when used carefully and with good purposes, will help assure that employees will give the appropriate outcome that a manager wants from them. Also, good ethics should be taken in mind when trying to perform these methods since bad ethics might cause the business to create a bad name and future.

In conclusion, the main thing to consider is that you need to be able to control people in your business in order for it to be a success. You will highly depend on other people so that business operations will be completed. If you cannot control what employees offer to your business, it will be hard for your business to grow and succeed, if not fail. For this reason, it is important to know how to control your employees and the best approach will be through micro politics to encourage people rather than giving direct orders, which may even slow the performance of employees.

Machiavellian Tactics: Hidden Persuasion in Business and Politics Today

Just over fifty years ago Vance Packard provoked worldwide alarm when he published The Hidden Persuaders, a book which exposed the ruthless way in which advertisers were using covert psychological techniques to manipulate our thoughts, fears and purchasing decisions. The book sold over a million copies, and for a while made the public aware of its vulnerability to the clandestine use of subliminal stimulation and Freudian depth psychology. The hue and cry that Packard caused has long since abated - but we're still being bombarded every day by the same coercive techniques. These are being subtly and incessantly applied, not only by advertisers, but also by politicians, newspapers, press agents, slogan writers, spin doctors and public relations consultants. Our subconscious minds are under constant attack, bombarded with feel-good stimuli designed to encourage us to buy products we don't need, won't use and often can't afford.

This, of course, is nothing new. Many regard Niccolo Machiavelli as the founding father of political thought control. He was the strategic adviser to the Florentine Republic in the early sixteenth century, and was one of the first to compile a written guide for rulers on the acquisition and deployment of political power. His book The Prince circulated privately during his lifetime, and was only published after his death because it was thought that its advice on the use of cunning, deceit and guile was far too dangerous to fall into dissident hands. 'It would be best to be both loved and feared', is one of the instructions he offers would-be rulers. 'But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.' The book was banned by the Catholic Church, who added it to its Index Liborum Prohibitorum, while no doubt keeping several copies in the Vatican library for the guidance of senior members of the all-powerful Roman Curia. It became one of the bibles of the Founding fathers of the American colonies, John Adams finding its advice invaluable, particularly the practical guidance it gives on the centralization of power and the control of rebel factions.

Many writers have developed the art of Machiavellian cunning. One of the earliest was the Spaniard Balthasar Gracian, who wrote The Art of Worldly Wisdom, which was published in 1637 and widely distributed throughout Europe. The book offers three hundred tips on how to achieve personal and public success. Much of this wise advice relates to personal life style change, and covers the same ground as the vast genre of contemporary self-help manuals. But, like Machiavelli, Gracian also provides suggestions for manipulating people. Here, for instance, are four of his tips, taken at random and suitably paraphrased. Axiom 5: 'Aim to make people dependent on you. The astute person prefers to have people needing them than thanking them. Keep their hope alive without entirely satisfying it, for then you'll preserve their dependency.' Axiom 7: 'Avoid surpassing your superiors. All victories generate hate, and to provoke such feelings in your seniors is foolish and self-destructive.' Axiom 17: 'Vary your pattern of behaviour, otherwise your rivals will be able to anticipate your course of action and frustrate your plans. It's easy to kill a bird that follows a straight course, not so one that twists and turns.' And Axiom 77: 'Be all things to all men. Observe, and mimic, their moods and mannerisms. Follow their lead. Be learned with the learned, and saintly with the saintly. This is the way to gain their sympathy and support.'

These are the techniques which politicians employ today, usually with the help of spin doctors trained in the art of psychological persuasion and Machiavellian cunning. It's no coincidence that the founding father of American PR, Edward L. Bernays, was the nephew of Sigmund Freud. One of his first tasks when he set up in practice was to give the Machiavellian art a more benign public face. This he did with great success, encouraging the man-in-the-street to think in terms of 'public relations' rather than 'propaganda.' But despite these attempts at rebranding, the work of the modern spin doctors is still largely devoid of ethical standards. This was shown on 9/11, the day when the Twin Towers of New York's Trade Centre were raised to the ground by al Qaeda terrorists. Seizing the opportunity this presented, Jo Moore, one of the UK government's press officers, sent a message to her political chiefs telling them: 'It's a good day to bury bad news.' (Her actual words were slightly different, but equally callous and unprincipled.)

These mind benders are hell bent on pulling the wool over our eyes. They're offering us not facts, but romantic fictions. Their power is immense; their presence all-pervasive. In Washington DC today there are over seventeen thousand lobbyists, promoting the interests of pressure groups ranging from those of large pharmaceutical companies, to anti-abortion campaigners and the National Rifle Association, which wants to ensure that every American has the right to carry a gun. Last year these movers and shakers received nearly $3.5 billion in funds, which doesn't include the amount they paid directly into the campaign accounts of Federal candidates. Unless we're vigilant, we'll be the victims of constant subliminal manipulation. Our hard won freedom will be lost, the moment we let others dictate our thoughts and purchasing decisions.

Courts and Politics - There is Supposed to Be a Separation, But I Cannot See it Anymore!

There are three branches of our government in the United States of America, and the Supreme Court is the law of the land, and there is supposed to be a separation between the other branches of government (legislative, executive). Unfortunately, this Supreme Court has become far too political, and I fear they are leaning us towards socialist tendencies. And many of the cases they decide to take, and the decisions they render, seem to coincide far too often political events, and the timing makes it all suspect.

Okay so, you probably want me to give you a couple of examples, because perhaps you are a liberal leaning socialist, and you want to make sure that whatever I say comes with examples, so you can blow it out of proportion, take my words out of context, and to defeat my premise, or theory. The only problem is you're not smart enough to do that, because if you believe in socialist societies, and that very fact, well, it proves that you are lacking in IQ level [in my opinion], or you really don't care about the United States of America. [In my opinion, which is CYA so you can't sue me.]

Below are two examples, they are very recent examples;

Gay Marriage Ban was overturned just before President Obama is scheduled to be in Los Angeles for a Fundraiser.

Arizona immigration law parts and clauses ruled unconstitutional day before protests and it was supposed to go into effect.

Still, these are only two examples, and it is occurring more and more often. Worse, I hereby charge the US Supreme Court with abandoning their sworn duty to uphold the US Constitution, and therefore have come to the conclusion that their administering of "The Law of the Land" has been compromised. What does this mean? It means that there is no longer justice in the United States of America, it has been corrupted.

Now then, I love my country, or obviously I wouldn't be writing this, but when the leadership of this nation is unfit to lead, and they are allowed to nominate members to the Supreme Court, and the legislative branch of our government approves those nominations, we find that we have one political party which has infiltrated all three branches of government, and we no longer have checks and balances.

The other problem is government is moving too fast, and when the Supreme Court is in cahoots with a fast-moving socialist-style political push in our government, we have a problem that we should all be concerned about. Now then, one could say that everything is fine, but that wouldn't be the reality, and the further this goes down the road without the pendulum swinging the other way, the harder it is going to be to fix in the future to keep our nation safe and sane.

Further, if we are going to run our country more like a straight democracy than the Republic that it is, and if we are going to continually elect populist-like presidents, then eventually our country will be run by mob rule, and anytime we get a large group of people protesting in the streets, the Supreme Court will do whatever it takes to calm them down, along with all the politicians.

This is a slippery slope that we are going down, and if we continue down this path, we will end up like many of the countries in Europe, and last time I checked they weren't doing so well. The United States of America is a great country, because it has a representative government, and yet, now we find that our politicians are willing to and are obliging the mass media which incites the mobs, and if our Supreme Court is willing to do the same, then no one is safe, nor can the citizenry, businesses, or future generations know what will happen next.

Such uncertainty in society and civilization, in economics and industry, or in politics and our court system cannot bring forth the desired results for the continuation of such a great nation.

Indeed, I see a storm on the horizon, one which no one is prepared for, and one which our government is either afraid of or will not take the necessary steps to protect the American people, rather making the potential eventuality much worse.

Is this where freedom goes astray, are we living in a society which is doomed to repeat, even when the obvious is right before our eyes? And who are these characters on stage, these people we call leaders, these podium pushing politicians who claim they are the answer?

They are the problem, not the answer.

Please consider all this.

Biblical Law and Political Freedom

On Sunday evening March 21, 2010 the House of Representatives voted to accept the national health-care bill passed by the Senate late last year. Once the legislation was signed by the President, it became the law of the land. This is another step in the effort to impose the religion of Man on the United States and to marginalize Christianity. Don't be fooled; it is not a political battle that is raging but a spiritual battle. It is a battle of worldviews concerning the nature of salvation. On one hand we have the belief that salvation comes about through law. On the other hand we have the truth that salvation is by grace alone. It is the nature of anti-God, anti-Christian government to seek to replace salvation in Christ with salvation by law. This describes our current circumstance and we need to understand what is happening if we hope to turn the tide.

In imperial Rome the health of the people was the highest law. This is because a government that sees human reason as the highest authority will enforce positive law in order to bring about utopia. "Positive law" refers to legislation that compels specific behavior (rather than restrict certain actions), in order to achieve redemption. As R.J. Rushdoony wrote, "If the law is positive in its function and if the health of the people is the highest law, then the state has total jurisdiction to compel the total health of the people." This means that "everything becomes a part of the state's jurisdiction because everything can potentially contribute to the health or the destruction of the people." Therefore the law becomes unlimited and the state unlimited. This is positive law because it becomes the business of the state not to control evil and subdue it but to control all men in all areas of life. Thus, "basic to every totalitarian regime is a positive concept of the function of law."

We have arrived at this point not due to a preordained failure of the Gospel but because of a reluctance on the part of the Church to embrace God's law in its legitimate role of maintaining order in society. In other words we have come perilously close to a mind-set that says "let sin abound that grace may abound all the more" (Romans 3:8, 6:1). We are guilty of playing politics. We are guilty of ignoring our nation's Christian heritage. We are guilty of denying the authority of Christ in every area of life. We are guilty of tossing the law of God onto the trash heap of history. The irony is that biblical law applied in its proper new testament context maximizes individual liberty while Man's law minimizes it.

Top 7 Similarities of Business and War

Business Strategy and capturing market share is somewhat similar in many regards to war strategy. How so you ask? Well below are the similarities listed for your consideration. And before I introduce them to you, I am not suggesting war is good or evil. I believe it is merely a formality of political impasse amongst humans and good or bad is irrelevant, as it just is.

Surely it would be best to have no wars and killing ones own species seems a bit problematic and nevertheless if you enemy is trying to kill you sometimes the defense of such leads to unfortunate circumstances.

Now then here are some parallels of business and war below and perhaps they will be of value to you for philosophical discussion?

1.) In war you have an opponent and your opponent wants what you have or you are trying to get what they have; market share.

2.) In war you fight many battles over the course of the war in many territories or markets.

3.) In war intelligence of your opponent is very important and in business you need to estimate you competitions next move.

4.) In war there are many aspect you need to control such as the air, ground and sea; in business you are also interested in controlling multiple market segments and servicing those customers better.

5.) In war you must be efficient with your supplies; such a fuel, food and such; in business efficiency means higher profits.

6.) In war you must hold the territories that you capture. In business you must maintain market share once you achieve it.

7.) In war you must defend your army and your country. In business you must defend your brand name and price points, by using many different methods.

Next time you are thinking about business strategy, winning markets and market share and then defending what you have achieved consider if you will the relationships to war strategy. In doing so you may see the game from another perspective and this may help your business. Think on this in 2006.