[Reflection] #39: Management Lessons from the Epic of the Three Kingdoms
Nearly 1,800 years ago, China was torn apart into three kingdoms. A Taiwanese philosopher, Ceng Shi Qiang, re-read this epic (condensed in the novel The Epic of the Three Kingdoms (Amazon link), one of the four Chinese classics) with a lens from the I Ching, the Book of Changes and management. The whole book can be read as a manual for corporate strategy, with one caveat: it never talks about business. It talks about kingdoms, generals, and oaths, but the mechanisms it describes are exactly those that make or break an organization.
His premise can be summed up in one sentence: beneath the turbulent surface of battles and alliances, an invisible hand works tirelessly to rebalance the world. This hand is not fate, nor the sum of human actions stacked end to end. It is the Tao itself.
Every business has its visible side (the org chart, the numbers, the processes) and its hidden side (trust, reputation, tacit loyalties, what people really think when they nod in meetings). The visible side is managed with dashboards; the hidden side is cultivated with consistency. Cao Cao had everything on paper (army, territory, talent) and yet he never unified China because his hidden side was that of a manipulator. Liu Bei, infinitely weaker on paper, held his own for decades because people believed in him. You can cheat on a balance sheet, but never on a reputation. The invisible order always rules in the end.
This invisible order is not an abstraction: it shows itself through concrete signs, provided you know how to read them. The episode of Liu Bei’s horse is the most striking illustration. Trapped by his enemies, cornered before an impassable river, Liu Bei is about to die. In a desperate surge, he cries to his horse not to let his mission fail, and the animal leaps across the waters, ten meters in one bound, a jump no ordinary horse could have made. At the moment, it looks like a miracle. But it wasn’t the horse that saved Liu Bei— it was the strength of his determination that awakened a latent power. The lesson holds for any company in crisis: unexploited resources are waiting for one thing only, and that is for the leader to truly decide to get out of it. The invisible order helps those who first help themselves.
Recruitment is also governed by this two-level logic. The surface says you need skills; the depth saysyou must first make yourself worthy of attracting them. There are three methods.
- The first is the announcement : you post a job, candidates apply. This works for ordinary employees, but the one who only recruits docile executors ends up sinking with them.
- The second is the referral : you rely on someone you trust to find good profiles, which allows you to attract mid-level talent. But a leader who only surrounds himself with friends, or imposes too heavy an authority, may accumulate brilliant CVs but won’t know how to make them work together.
- The third is the personal invitation. Top-tier talent responds neither to ads nor to headhunter calls nor to HR emails. They will come only if you go to them, if you prove your sincerity through concrete actions. Liu Bei does not recruit Zhuge Liang; he goes to his cottage three times, accepts waiting, being tested, showing that he is not just another lord but a man for whom a cause exists. How many leaders would be willing to do that today?
Once you’ve found talent, you must still not destroy it by overloading it with honors. The book shows this with surgical precision through Guan Yu. Everyone venerates him: the god of war, the invincible, the hero with the magnificent beard. Sun Quan proposes a marriage alliance; he responds by insulting the King of Wu’s son. Cao Cao, his enemy, showers him with gifts and titles. Every compliment, every mark of admiration, every door opened for him without having to lower himself reinforces his conviction that he is untouchable. And it is precisely that which undoes him. When he sets out on a campaign, he leaves behind a poorly defended base, convinced that no one would ever dare attack him. Lu Meng and Lu Xun, on the Wu side, understand the mechanism: Lu Xun sends him a letter of exaggerated humility, showering him with praise, and Guan Yu, puffed up with arrogance, completely lowers his guard. Jingzhou falls without a fight, and Guan Yu dies captive soon after. The I Ching says: What is at the top can only come down, and the Tao Te Ching: “What you want to weaken, you must first strengthen. What you want to overthrow, you must first raise.” A subordinate who is showered with praise without ever being confronted with their blind spots is a man being prepared for a fall. On the contrary, a person who is challenged will be more cautious and effective. I’ve never been more motivated and competent than when I was hated by my manager. A competent person can make their enemies even more competent, so you should never choose your enemies lightly, nor compliment someone lightly.
Talent without integrity is poison. Lü Bu is the best warrior of his time, the star consultant, the salesperson with impossible numbers. Everyone wants him; no one can keep him. He betrays the father who raised him for a horse, then his new master for a woman. Cao Cao, who genuinely admired him, ends up having him executed because he realized that skill without loyalty destroys everything it touches. Guan Yu has exactly the same martial level, but he is celebrated because he possesses a virtue that Lü Bu never had: fidelity to his word, the refusal to betray even when it is tempting, the sense of honor before calculation. Recruiting on skill alone is buying a ticking time bomb. Righteousness is not a bonus; it is the foundation.
A leader is judged by his succession. Yuan Shao leaves three sons tearing each other apart; his empire collapses in a generation. Liu Biao, unable to decide between his two sons, loses Jingzhou without a fight. Cao Cao himself, despite all his intelligence, failed to create a succession that would survive his own son’s ambition. An organization that does not prepare for the future is an organization that exists only for its current leader.
Failure is sometimes the best thing that can happen. The loss of Jingzhou is a catastrophe for Shu, but it forces Liu Bei to clarify what really matters to him, and he chooses to avenge his brother rather than preserve his kingdom, thus sealing his legend. A good year can make a company arrogant and lead it to its downfall; a crisis can reveal loyalties you never suspected. The book repeats in every possible form that success and failure are only the surface of things; beneath, a permanent rebalancing is at work.
Power cannot stand isolation. Dong Zhuo, the perfect dictator, falls because he no longer listens to anyone. Yuan Shao has a army of advisors and never follows the right one, because he does not know how to choose. Cao Cao listens, but selects what suits him. The only one who truly practices listening is Liu Bei, not out of weakness, but because he knows that his strength is that of others. The management described here is one where the leader does not decide alone: he consults, he reads the wind, he measures what the collective can absorb, and he decides when alignment is possible.
“The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.” With this single opening phrase, Lao Tzu lays the foundation of the entire philosophy of leadership. All management thought crystallizes in this word: the Tao. There is the eternal Tao and the manifested Tao, and what we observe in the visible world is almost never more than the latter. The eternal Tao, on the other hand, resides in the mind, invisible, silent, elusive.
None of the giants of the Three Kingdoms saw their dream fulfilled in their lifetime, and yet, the Tao continued its work through them.
Man can act on small things; the great ones belong to the Tao. This invisible hand described by the Yi Jing and the Tao Te King is not a conscious will: it is a cosmic principle that infiltrates, placing its representatives in the right places, at the right time. The Tao is not forced, not deserved, not negotiated. It flows through whom it wants, when it wants. What matters then is not success, but fidelity to what needed to be done. Effort fulfills duty, not the result, and recognizing this is already understanding the Tao. All a man can do is act with righteousness, not tarnish the moral atmosphere of his era, then let the Tao accomplish what no human will can force.
