Idea 48 - War & Strategy The idea that business could be warfare by another name took hold of many business leaders during the 1980s. It was not that they wanted to destroy the enemy - though some of them undoubtedly did - but that they believed they should strategize like successful generals. Though it's no longer fashionable to admit it, many leaders of big businesses have felt an affinity with famous generals. They recognize them as the doers of their time, in an age when 'trade' was not a respectable calling. Born later, the kind of men who rose to generalship might well have opted for industry instead. They would have found themselves doing much the same job, planning, organizing resources and motivating large groups of people to reach a defined objective. Jack Welch, General Electric's reforming ex-CEO, made no secret of his admiration for Carl von Clausewitz, whose writings were said to have 'distilled Napoleon into theory'. He was the