The Book of Five Rings for Executives: Musashi's Classic Book of Competitive Tactics

The Book of Five Rings for Executives, by international management consultant Donald G. Krause, is his third volume on classic battle philosophies that can help today's businesspeople compete more effectively. Based on an epic five-part letter to students written in 1643 by legendary samurai swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, the book has enthusiastically transplanted long-revered instructions in the martial arts from the Eastern battlefield to the Western boardroom. Musashi's stirring but difficult original treatise on "achieving competitive dominance" is given a more digestible update here by Krause, who shrewdly reorients its fundamental "five rings" into a set of seven practical principles centered on the requisite modern traits of preparation, discipline, skill, and fluidity. Along the way, he demonstrates how historical leaders such as George Washington and Lawrence of Arabia, in addition to contemporaries like Bill Gates and Howard Schultz, have embraced Musashi's ideas. The combination ultimately creates, as Krause explains, "a competitive sword which is capable of winning in all phases of business." --Howard Rothman