An army takes the shape of water

Sunzi wrote: the shape of an army may be likened to water. Water leaves high places and goes to low ones. An army avoids strength and strikes weakness. Water shapes its course according to the ground. An army works out its victory in relation to its opponent.

Then he adds the line that most people miss: as water has no constant shape, so an army has no constant conditions.

There's a version of this in every career that has stalled. A person found what worked, was rewarded for it, and then applied it with increasing force to conditions that had changed. The method that produced the first promotion is often the reason for the plateau.

It's difficult to notice because the method was genuinely correct. You can replay the reasoning and everything checks out except the date.

The practice is to keep a small note on the ground itself. Once a month: what has changed underneath me since the last time I checked. Not the plan, the ground. Budget, market, family, health, the thing I can no longer pretend I enjoy.

Water is not inconsistent. It's responsive to terrain, which is the more disciplined thing.

MOJOWAY's monthly report is a terrain update rather than a verdict. It records what the ground did while a person was busy executing, and that's usually where the real insight sits.