Striking the oars

Years later Zu Ti was given a small force and told to recover the occupied northern lands. He was given a thousand men and some cloth, and the court expected nothing.

He crossed the Yangtze. In the middle of the river he struck his oar on the water and said aloud, in front of the troops, that if he did not succeed in clearing the north he would not come back across.

Then he went on and won several engagements and held territory.

The detail nobody mentions is that the announcement was made where the soldiers could hear it. He wasn't strengthening his own resolve. He was making it impossible for the men to think of the crossing as reversible.

That's a specific instrument, and it has a cost. Public declaration works because it removes the quiet option. It also means that if the thing fails, everyone knows you said this. People who are not sure yet shouldn't do this. It's not a technique for producing certainty. It's a tool for using the certainty you already have.

If you're going to strike an oar, strike it once, at the right river, with people you trust to survive your failure, because you're going to need them either way.

This is also why I don't like big public plans with no date on them. An oar struck at a general intention is just noise.

MOJOWAY asks for the date, not the announcement.