Upon receiving the latest issue of KMWorld, I noticed an article on the front page called The adversity of knowledge by David Weinberger. The article is a take on ex-General Electric CEO Jack Welch’s book Jack: Straight from the Gut.

In the article, David Weinberger suggests that Jack Welch’s adversial, even combative approach to business doesn’t work so well when it comes to knowledge — and rightly so. Yet does this adversarial approach even make sense in business in general?

What we’re really talking about is running your business like you’re waging war. I talked before about the business-as-war metaphor (where I also referenced another very interesting post about business-as-war), and how it’s a really difficult strategy to make stick in the long term (long, drawn-out wars don’t tend to do anyone any good).

This management style often classifies competitors as enemies that must be crushed, defeated and vanquished in order for our own business goals to be met. Casualties on both sides are to be expected (David Weinberger mentions Jack Welch’s propensity to get managers to designate employees as As, Bs and Cs — they must assign at least 10% as Cs — and Cs must either improve or get fired).

The business-as-war metaphor identifies organizations as nations — and establishes the same faulty logic that there is always a winner and a loser in war. In fact, there are often many more losers than there are winners — and that those who win and lose often do so on an individual level rather than a broader level.

Running your business to destroy has many of the same effects as running your country to destroy others does: you become feared, resented and often, hated. Those who do decide to partner with you often do so with less than enthusiastic vigor, and those who are against you become even more entrenched against you than they are now.

Oscar Wilde said that the fascination with war would cease to exist when war was thought to be something vulgar — yet in this case, not only is the metaphor a vulgar one, it’s also ineffective in conveying the real advantages of collaboration. More business will be won and more goals will always be achieved through partnerships than through enimities.