From Carl von Clausewitz (On War, 1832), made into a working method by Joe Strange (Centers of Gravity and Critical Vulnerabilities, 1996).
Finds the element a competitor, organization, or plan depends on for its strength, then its weak supports, so effort goes where it will be decisive.
When to reach for it
When resources are limited and spreading them across every front would achieve little, in a competitive campaign, a change program, or a turnaround.
How it runs
- Choose the system to analyze: a rival, one's own side, or both.
- Name the candidate sources of its power or cohesion.
- Test each: would losing it collapse the system?
- List what the center does and what it needs to function.
- Find the weakest of those requirements.
- Aim effort at those weak points, and guard the same points at home.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
Go to the source
- On War (Vom Kriege), 1832
- Centers of Gravity and Critical Vulnerabilities, 1996