Sun Tzu | The Art of War | Strategy | Project Management | Books

Conquering Projects, One Email a Day

An innovative way to read Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”

Fabio Turel
2 min readFeb 7, 2024

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Some weeks ago, I launched a poll on LinkedIn about classic literature as a source of inspiration for managers, with a particular focus on project management.

The poll asked participants to identify the least useful book. Interestingly, some respondents chose the option ‘others’ and regarded the general category of contemporary books by management gurus as the most unhelpful.

Image by DALL-E edited by Fabio Turel

Meanwhile, among the classical texts I suggested, ‘The Art of War’ received notable criticism, with the other two following closely.

Despite these reactions (…that I deliberately provoked…), I believe each of these books offers valuable insights.

👑🎭 ‘The Prince’ is my personal favourite because of its incisive analysis of the basic emotional triggers that drive consensus, and the management of power.

🐷🚜 ‘Animal Farm’ resonates with me for a very specific reason, as it intriguingly challenges the notion of equality (“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”), echoing the difficulties in implementing the Agile principle about self-managing teams.

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Fabio Turel

A Project Manager must be a good storyteller. Stories about my profession, my interests and my passions converge in this place.