If You Can Be Sand-Tabled, You Have No Strategy

“In the last chapter, we saw that to create an explicit model of combat, business, or the economy, we had to assume that these activities proceeded according to predictable, mathematical patterns—that they form systems.42 We also found that on many occasions, the smaller or less technologically advanced side won, confounding the predictions of the models. The reason for this reversal, in business and in war, appears to be that these smaller organizations were able to avoid or negate the larger’s advantages in size and strength. Somehow they had managed not to become systems in the eyes of their larger opponents. This might lead one to suspect that in any competitive endeavor, if you can be modeled (“sand-tabled,” as Boyd referred to it) you aren’t using strategy at all, and you can be defeated.”

“This might lead one to suspect that in any competitive endeavor, if you can be modeled (“sand-tabled,” as Boyd referred to it) you aren’t using strategy at all, and you can be defeated.”