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Key points
Create an illusion that an individual is still there, fully committed, while they are quietly shifting to another place, committed to other things.
This shift must be quiet and the result must be stronger.
Examples
In the movie The Sound of Music, the von Trapp family pretends to do a performance, however, the family actually quietly flees the scene.
During the evacuation of the Battle of Gallipoli the British and Anzac forces were able to retreat without routing by creating the illusion that their trenches remained occupied.
In 2009, General Motors (GM) and Chrysler LLC went through a surgical bankruptcy where both companies were separated into several categories. First as a "good" GM and a "good"
Chrysler as they became new companies (cicadas that fled). Second as a "bad" GM and a "bad" Chrysler they became liquidated (old cicada skins) and their assets were sold to compensate bond holders and creditors.
Relevant TRIZ Principles
Principle 1: Segmentation
Principle 7: Nested doll
Strategy 22: Shutting the Door to Capture the Thief
When faced with a weak enemy if there is a chance to eliminate it once and for all make sure to shut down all escape routes and eliminate the enemy without leaving any possibility for its rebirth or to regrow.

Key points
Only use it to deal with a manageable opponent.
Strike with overwhelming force.
Shut all escape doors.
Examples
Pest control or the need to eliminate all possible ways for regrowth.
An antivirus program in information technology.
Using chain stores to capture customers who would otherwise shop smaller, unique stores.
Relevant TRIZ Principle
Principle 20: Continuity of useful action

Strategy 23: Befriend to a Distant Enemy and Attack Ones Nearby
Around 300 BC, the Qin was the strongest state in China. An advisor to the emperor proposed a strategy to the emperor. Japanese strong man Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) gave the following description of this strategy:

"Let us proceed with caution, concentrating our strength and add to it daily. By winning over to our side those barons who are vassal of the enemy then when the enemy stands alone, like a tree shorn of its leaves and branches, we will attack and destroy the root!"

Key points
When an individual is not as strong as his opponents, fight with the ones that are easy to win first, gaining strength in the process.
Establish a temporary truce with stronger, more powerful or long-term opponents and leave the hard fight for later – after becoming stronger.
Examples
The process from a low cost competitor to a full scale competitor.
In 1950, Honda was trying to sell its motorcycles. Instead of selling from motorcycle dealers, which were difficult to work with and more expensive for Honda, Honda started to sell its motorcycles through bicycle dealers. This way made it easier and cheaper for Honda to sell motorcycles.
Relevant TRIZ Principle
The distance-time-cost tool in TRIZ and functional analysis share some common thoughts with the Honda strategy.

Strategy 24: Conquer by Using Borrowed Road
The name of this strategy comes from a story from the spring, autumn period of China (8-5 BC). One big power pretended to borrow the road from a small neighbor (who agreed) in order to attack another small state. When the big power's army marched back home it conquered them and the neighbors.

The Thirty Six Strategies explained this strategy as: "When there are major powers and small powers, the smart way to play is for a major power to make a bit better offer to smaller powers in order to gain control over them."

Key points
It is easy to use borrowed resources.
It is important to control minor players to gain the upper hand.
Examples
In 1968, the Soviet Union used a similar strategy to over-run Czechoslovakia with little effort. One Soviet transport plane claimed that it had a mechanical failure and landed at the Prague airport. After it landed, the inside army quickly occupied the airport. Soon after a large number of Soviet troops landed in the airport and they took over Prague.
Toyota offers suppliers / dealers a little bit better deal to gain supplier support.
Relevant TRIZ Principle
This strategy shares common thoughts with TRIZ on the effective use of resources, especially on the use of borrowed resources.

Proximate Strategies
Strategy 25: Replace the Beams with Rotten Timbers
In the Art of War, Sun Tzu said: "The generals are the supporting pillar of the state. If their talents are superior, the state will be strong. If the supporting pillar is marked by fissures, the state will grow weak."

Key points
Disrupt the enemy's formations, interfere with their methods of operation.
Change the rules they are used to following. Go contrary to their standard training in this way. Remove the supporting pillar, the common link, which makes a group strong.
Replace the enemy's main pillar with inferior parts.
Examples
The Soviet spies secretly changed a screw on the opponent's U-2 plane to make it show a higher altitude. Later the U-2 plane was brought down by a regular missile as it was not flying at the altitude it expected.
Launch disruptive innovation to change the rules of the game in the marketplace.
Relevant TRIZ Principle
Principle 35: Parameter change

Strategy 26: Point at the Mulberry but Curse the Locust Tree (Indirect Warning Strategy)
A Chinese proverb says: "Kill a chicken to scare monkeys." This strategy is about indirect warning. In The Thirty Six Strategies, this strategy is explained as: "Even when you are strong, using warning instead of direct force can get things done easier and better."

Key points
Use indirect warning instead of direct action.
Discipline others to show that the individual rules.
Example
The U.S. attacked Grenada in 1983 to send a strong signal to Nicaragua and Cuba.

Relevant TRIZ Principle
In functional analysis or Su-field analysis in TRIZ, sometimes the use of ancillary fields to influence objects is recommended. This approach shares common thoughts with Strategy 26.

Strategy 27: Pretending Ignorance
In The Thirty Six Strategies this strategy is explained as: "It is better to pretend knowing nothing, than pretend to know a lot more than you actually are, so you won't make decision or do things recklessly."

Key points
Too much of a display could draw too much attention and make opponents well prepared.
Keeping a low profile and pretending to be weaker or knowing less than what is actually known can make an opponent lower their guard. This will create advantages.
Example
Lucius Junius Brutus (founder of the Roman republic) feigned idiocy for many years while he secretly prepared to depose Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome.

Relevant TRIZ Principle
Principle 35: Parameter change

Strategy 28: Remove the Ladder When the Enemy has Ascended to the Roof (Trap Strategy)
In the Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote: "Avoid terrain that features cliffs and crags, narrow passes, tangled bush and quagmires. While avoiding such places ourselves, try to lure the enemy into such areas so that when we attack the enemy will have this type of terrain at his rear."

Key point
Use bait and deception, lure the enemy into traps and then shut off the escape routes.

Example
Soldier Napoleon Bonaparte had been spurred on by the prize of capturing Moscow and with it the defeat of Russia; however, all he found was a burned, empty city; his forces were cut off in hostile terrain and in bad weather with no supplies.

Relevant TRIZ Principles
Principle 3: Local quality
Principle 4: Asymmetry
Strategy 29: Decorating a Tree with Flowers
In The Thirty Six Strategies this strategy is explained as: "Birds' feathers make them look bigger than they actually are. Fake flowers combined with real trees can make them look nice."

Key points
The use of simulation and camouflage to make things appear nicer, more useful, more viable or stronger.
Mixing simulations with real things to make opponents unsure about real strength or the real situation.
Example
In Disney's shows, both simulation and real performance are mixed to achieve spectacular effects.

Relevant TRIZ Principles
Principle 26: Copying
Principle 32: Color change
Strategy 30: Turning the Guest into the Host
In The Thirty Six Strategies this strategy is explained as: "At first, you need to put a foothold on the place then make gain steadily, finally you can take over the key positions."

Key points
If an individual cannot defeat them, join them.
If an individual is weak then they can participate in the game as a guest. Make a truce with opponents, work with them, learn from them, but also observe their vulnerabilities. Grow in the process.
After gaining enough strength, take control.
Example
After World War II, Toyota was a tiny, weak automobile company. It sent a delegation led by Taichi Ohno (considered to be the father of the Toyota Production System) to learn from the Ford Motor Company. They stayed in the Ford Rouge plant for months to learn Ford's production system, but Toyota looked into the weaknesses of Ford as well. Toyota was a quiet, seemingly harmless guest to the U.S. "big three" companies for a long time.

Relevant TRIZ Principles
Principle 5: Merging
Principle 13: The other way around
Defeat Strategies
Strategy 31: Honey Trap (Beauty Trap)
In The Thirty Six Strategies this strategy is explained as: "If enemy's soldiers are too strong then you will try to work on their generals. If their generals are very smart then you will try to mess up their emotional life and spirit." The title of this strategy is rooted in some legends that opponents use beautiful women to cause rulers discord.

Key point
Take advantage of the fatal attractions of the opponents to weaken them. Make them make mistakes.

Example
The use of chemicals released by female pests to lure male pests to trap or poison in pest control practices.

Relevant TRIZ Principle
Principle 8: Antiweight

Strategy 32: The Empty Fort Strategy
A Chinese legend said that in 3rd century BC one of the most famous Chinese strategists faced a dire situation. The enemy's strong army suddenly appeared in sight and he had few in his army to defend the city. The strategist opened the city gate and made the city look defenseless while he played a musical instrument. His enemy was suspicious and afraid of ambush and disappeared.

In the Art of War, Sun Tzu said: "When weak, appear strong, when strong, appear weak."

Key point
Psychologically, people are used to following paradigms. When behavior is out of the ordinary it will confuse people. Take advantage of this and get out of trouble temporarily.

Relevant TRIZ Principles
Principle 13: The other way around
Principle 35: Parameter change
This strategy is a good example of taking advantage of people's psychological inertia, which TRIZ is trying to overcome.

Strategy 33: The Strategy of Sowing Discord
In the Art of War, Sun Tzu explained: "Reduce the effectiveness of your enemy by inflicting discord among them."

Key point
Undermine the enemy's ability to fight by secretly causing discord among them, their friends, allies, advisors, family, commanders, soldiers and population. While they are preoccupied settling internal disputes their ability to attack or defend will be compromised.

Relevant TRIZ Principles
Principle 9: Preliminary anti-action
Principle 10: Preliminary action
This strategy is also a good example of taking advantage of people's psychological inertia.

Strategy 34: Victim Status Strategy
Key points
Portray the individual as a victim to gain trust.
Use this status to an individual's advantage.
Example
A chief executive officer (CEO) only earns one dollar in salary to gain support and sympathy from employees.

Relevant TRIZ Principles
Principle 9: Preliminary anti-action
Principle 10: Preliminary action
This strategy is also a good example of taking advantage of people's psychological inertia.

Strategy 35: Chain Strategy
In the Art of War, Sun Tzu described: "Do not repeat tactics which gained you victory in the past, but let your tactics be molded by infinite variety of circumstances."

Key points
In important matters an individual should use several strategies applied simultaneously one right after another as in a chain of stratagems.
Keep different plans operating in an overall scheme.
Relevant TRIZ Principles
Principle 5: Merging
Principle 6: Universality
Principle 15: Dynamics
Strategy 36: If Everything Else Fails, Retreat
In the Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote: "If greatly outnumbered then retreat. While it is possible for a small force to put up a great fight, in the end it will lose to superior numbers."

In The Thirty Six Strategies this strategy is explained as: "When your side is losing there are only three choices remaining: surrender, compromise or escape. Surrender is complete defeat, compromise is half defeat, but escape is not defeat. As long as you are not defeated, you still have a chance."

Key point
If it becomes obvious that the current course of action will lead to defeat then retreat and regroup.

Relevant TRIZ Principles
There are no relevant TRIZ principles.

Similarities and Differences Among the Thirty-six Strategies and TRIZ Similarities
Though the 36 strategies and TRIZ were created under different situations and cultural backgrounds, the author found some striking similarities, which are described below.

Common Goals: Ideal Final Result
In TRIZ, ideality is a measure of excellence for technical solutions. Ideality is defined by the following ratio:

Ideality =

The higher the ideality, the better the technical solution is for a particular problem. The ultimate goal for TRIZ is to achieve the ideal final result (IFR) where costs and harm will be approaching the minimum and benefits will be approaching the maximum.

In The Thirty Six Strategies all the strategies are about looking for solutions that will achieve maximum benefits with minimal costs and harmful side effects. For example, in the third strategy, "Kill with a borrowed knife" and in the seventh strategy, "create something from nothing," both are trying to accomplish a task without any cost and side effects. In the second strategy, "Besiege Wei to rescue Zhao" and in the fifteenth strategy, "lure the tiger down from the mountain," they are both about fighting to win with minimum loss and maximum effectiveness.

One of the key fundamentals of the 36 strategies can be described by this quote from the Art of War by Sun Tzu: "When we fight, the best strategy is to win by intelligence and wisdom, the second is to win by diplomacy then it is to win by battle. The worst strategy is to win by costly city by city fight."

As described by The Thirty Six Strategies, the first 18 strategies are used when decision makers are in advantageous position. An individual can see that these 18 strategies are about "how to win with maximum benefits and with minimal loss and efforts." The second set of the 18 strategies is used when decision makers are in disadvantageous or even dire positions. An individual can see that these strategies are about "how to reverse the situation to win" or "how to avoid failure" with maximum effectiveness and minimal loss. Clearly, achieving maximum ideality are the common goals of both TRIZ and the 40 inventive principles and the 36 strategies.

Eye Openers for Unusual Solutions
Both TRIZ and the 36 strategies serve as eye openers for unusual solutions for particular situations. The inventive principles of TRIZ are summarized by past inventions and they are used when a technical or a non-technical problem faces some difficult-to-solve bottlenecks or contradictions. The application of inventive TRIZ principles is a practice of knowledge and reuse. The application of the 36 strategies has a similar process and purpose. Each strategy is also a summary of past successes. Decision makers would like to reuse the strategy when it fits.

Optimal Uses of Resources
For both the 36 strategies and TRIZ, optimal uses of resources are one of the most important pillars of their approaches. In the 36 strategies, there are many strategies that deal with how to use other resources, optimal timing and so on. In TRIZ, many strategies on the uses of other resources, ignored resources and creation of resources from wastes are developed.

Psychological Inertia
For TRIZ, the study of people's psychological inertia is extensive and many thoughts are developed for overcoming people's psychological inertia in order to develop breakthrough ideas. For the 36 strategies, the enemy's psychological inertia is noticed. Several strategies such as strategies 32, 33 and 34 respectively, take advantage of people's psychological inertia – even to their advantage under some dire situations.

Differences
There are also several significant differences among the inventive principles of TRIZ and the 36 strategies, summarized as follows:

Domains of Knowledge Base
The inventive principles of TRIZ, whether the original 40 inventive principles or the newer versions are derived from patents of various technological fields.6 The purpose of the inventive principles is to serve as a concise, exhaustive list of principles, which are able to summarize "all the tricks" used in the technological inventions documented in patents. When the inventive principles of TRIZ are used in non-technical areas they are mostly customized re-interpretations of principles to various non-technological fields.

The 36 strategies are derived from 3000 years of theory and practices from ancient battlefield tactics, political and diplomatic practices and psychological warfare. The applications of the 36 strategies are mostly in the area of non technical fields such as politics, diplomacy, espionage and business operations. Unlike TRIZ, the 36 strategies are not formally derived from a massive study of all strategies and there are no claims that it is an exhaustive list of all good strategies.

Application Method
In TRIZ applications, the inventive principles are usually used in combination with the contradiction matrix. The problem is first defined as a contradiction and then the search for relevant inventive principles begins to derive specific solutions from them.

In the 36 strategies, all 36 strategies are divided into six sections:

Winning
Enemy dealing
Attacking
Chaos
Proximate
Defeat
In the first three sections, the decision makers have an advantageous position and in the second three sections, the decision makers have a disadvantageous position. The application process of the 36 strategies is simply described as "pick and choose the ones that may fit your situation."

Degree of Overlapping
Based on the author's analysis, out of 36 strategies, 28 strategies are somewhat relevant or share some common element with 29 of the 40 inventive principles of TRIZ. There are eight strategies that have no resemblance with the 40 inventive principles of TRIZ. There are 11 inventive TRIZ principles that are not remotely used in the 36 strategies.

These 11 inventive TRIZ principles include:

Principle 17
Principle 18
Principle 19
Principle 23
Principle 28
Principle 29
Principle 30
Principle 36
Principle 37
Principle 38
Principle 40
By examining these particular principles, it is not difficult to find that almost all these principles are closely linked to modern technological development. Examples include, principle 18 (mechanical vibration) and principle 23 (feedback).

The eight strategies that are not linked to the 40 inventive principles include:

Strategy 9
Strategy 18
Strategy 19
Strategy 23
Strategy 24
Strategy 26
Strategy 28
Strategy 36
Based on the author's preliminary analysis, some of these strategies are related to psychological warfare such as strategies 26, 27, 28, 32, 33 and 34. They are not remotely linked to technological inventions. Some of them are multiple stage strategies such as strategies 17, 23, and 30, respectively. They are not linked to patents. Some of them emphasize discovering and resolving vital root causes such as strategies 18 and 19. If all the other knowledge bases of TRIZ are included such as use of resources, Su-field analysis, studies of psychological inertia then an individual will find that the degree of overlapping is much greater. Almost all the 36 strategies share some common thoughts with TRIZ.

Conclusions
In this paper, the 36 strategies from ancient China are thoroughly researched and discussed along with examples of how they overlap with the 40 inventive principles of TRIZ. Both TRIZ and the 36 strategies strive for searching solutions that achieve high ideality and both the 40 inventive principles of TRIZ and the 36 strategies are eye openers that could help to land unusual, creative and effective solutions for difficult problems.

There are also significant differences, TRIZ principles are derived as exhaustive principles describing inventive approaches reflected in patents. The 36 strategies include a short list of fabled strategies from 3000 years of ancient Chinese practices in politics, military battle tactics, psychological warfare and human struggle. The 36 strategies can also be applied to modern day business operations, diplomacy and international politics.

The author's analysis has shown that there are significant overlaps among the 40 inventive principles of TRIZ and the 36 strategies, which underscore the fact that many elements of human wisdom are universal. The author's study also indicates that there are significant distinctions among the 40 inventive principles and the 36 strategies. The 40 inventive principles of TRIZ contain many elements that are not covered by the 36 strategies. The majority of these elements are related to modern technological developments. The 36 strategies also contain many elements that are not related to the 40 inventive principles. Some of these elements are not related to engineering technology areas. Some of these elements are not related to inventions either, however, they are well planned multiple stage strategies or best practices. If all knowledge bases of TRIZ are included, then there is greater overlap of the 36 strategies with TRIZ.

References
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About the Author:
Kai Yang, PhD is a professor at the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Wayne State University. Contact Kai Yang at ac4505 (at) wayne.edu or visit http://www.eng.wayne.edu/page.php?id=574.