The Shape of Progress: Cycles within Cycles

http://scienceofstrategy.org/main/content/shape-progress-cycles-within-cycles

The purpose of this article is to discuss some of the more interesting aspects of Sun Tzu's
Progress Cycle. The progress cycle is the basic method for advancing a strategic position.
It is the shorthand we use to describe the steps of listening, aiming, moving and claiming. It is
also a way of organizing an array of strategic techniques into different categories. There are
listening techniques, aiming techniques, and so on.
One of the most interesting aspect of the Progress Cycle is that it is scalable. It steps apply
both to long-term campaign and to addressing the very small scale advances we attempt to
make every day. Each "step" in the cycle can also be broken down into smaller cycles. The
purpose of this article is to look at useful ways of breaking down the steps in the Progress
Cycle for easier understanding.
Complementary Opposition in Action
We usually illustrate the steps of the Progress Cycle, listen-
aim-move-claim, as a cycle, with each new claim step leading
back into a new listening step. Classical Chinese philosophy
saw all of nature as consisting of repeating cycles. It also saw
each cycle as the completion of two complementary and
opposite phases. The general concept of Sun Tzu's
complementary opposites defines many elements of Sun Tzu's
strategy. The Progress Cycle is complementary opposition in
action.
The easiest way to illustrate this idea is from examples in
nature. Our breathing cycle requires both inhaling and
exhaling. The time cycle requires both day and night, summer
and winter. So each cycle is a combination of two opposing
movements, that, like a pendulum, swing from one extreme to
the other creating balance.
The Progress Cycle can be broken down into opposite phases
in many different ways. The Claim and Listen are the input
steps, while the Aim and Move are the output steps. We can
also think of them as the income steps and the expense steps.
However, there are smaller cycles within this big cycle. Each
step consists of its own set of complementary opposites.
Generally speaking, we can think of each step as its own little
cycle of expansion. During the expansion phase, it reaches out
to get a broader perspective, followed by a period of a
contraction, narrowing in and focus and power.
Another analogy for the Progress Cycle is the two-cylinder,
four-cycle engine. In the expansion phase, an engine brings in
its fuel. Then it goes into compression phase, that concentrates
and explodes the fuel, leading to the next expansion phase.
In the Listening step, we listen to a broadly as we can outside
the organization and then bring those ideas to listen inside the
organization narrowing our discussion to finally it comes to
one decision-maker.
In the Aiming step, the decision-maker examines all possible
moves identified by listening and applying the rules of aim to
narrow down those possibilities to the best one for now.
In the Moving step, our actions encounter a wide variety of conditions that make up the
situation in the environment for which we must instantly choose the one, right appropriate
response.
In the Claiming step, we look at as many of the results as we can before we narrow to make
our claim.
Varied Cycles within The Progress Cycles
Of course, as we have already said,
each "step" in the Progress Cycle can also be broken down into series smaller cycles of listen,
aim, move, claim. This gets interesting because each smaller step retains its essential
character, but the best order for the steps may change. The standard form of "listen-aim-
move-claim" works in larger scale situations, but it tends to get shuffled when breaking down
the steps in the cycle itself. All four sub-steps are still needed to complete the step, usually in
multiple iterations, but the order of the steps may and sometimes should vary.
For example, a single listening step can be broken down into separate listen-aim-move-claim
sub-steps. We can describe these sub-steps in the following way:
 Listen: uncritical, attentive listening
 Aim: determining what additional information we want
 Move: asking a question
 Claim: feeding back what we hear
While the "standard" listen-aim-move-claim sequence is okay, a listen-claim-aim-move order
usually makes more sense. We listen. Then we feedback what we heard. Then we decide
what we want to learn more about, and then we ask our next question.