Napoleon's Glance: The Secret of Strategy (Nation Books) Paperback – March 19, 2004

William Duggan's "Napoleon's Glance" is just a phenomenal book overall, but a particularly good reference for the archetype of strategic intuition, Napoleon Bonaparte.Intuition is a multi-faceted concept. Ordinary intuition - a general term for your gut instinct - is a form of emotion, what Duggan refers to as feeling, not thinking. "A flash of insight cuts through the fog of your mind with clear, shining thought." That's different from expert intuition, what Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in his 2005 book, "Blink." Expert intuition is a form of rapid thinking that allows you to quickly reach a conclusion when you face familiar circumstances. Pattern recognition - and misrecognition - is the key, and experience tends to hone expert intuition over time.But strategic intuition is something that requires discipline - to think, rather than feel - when facing unfamiliar circumstances. Basically, you take a beat to allow your brain to ponder a solution. "You must disconnect the old dots to let new ones connect on their own."Napoleon's glance was what Clausewitz described as coup d'œil, the ability to capture the entirety of a situation "at a glance," the inward eye that enables a commander to reach a "rapid and accurate decision" and quickly recognize "a truth that the mind would ordinarily miss." That's an important concept, one that transcends expert intuition.

What differentiates major success from the average accomplishment? It is the ability of the individual concerned to perceive the full ramifications of a situation and devise an innovative response. That response maximizes the payoff, that results from the successful accomplishment, to the individual. The book provides a number of vignettes that describe the response of a number of individuals who attained outstanding success in what they set out to accomplish. The author uses Napoleon's manner of sizing up a battlefield as the vehicle to present the idea that the "sizing up" the battlefield to overcome the enemy is the way an executive, for example, should learn to size up a company event to turn it into a "victory" for the firm and, not so incidentally, for himself

The writing is a bit unorganized and not super well edited, which detracts slightly from the decent stories the book contains.

Not a bad proposition.Still perfecting what I learned. It's tough to match Napoleon Bonaparte's instincts and his stamina for staying up night after night strategizing all the angles.But as he said: "You never reach so high, as when you're not totally sure of where you're heading."

Took Duggan's class at Columbia - and read the book. A must read for anyone who wants to understand the creative process and how to get a 'flash of insight'

Great idea, interesting few chapters, but then the examples started to seem a bit forced.

I chose to read this book to learn of strategy to ultimately help me become a better leader. I feel like this book has inspired me and I look forward to my own coup dois.

Great book! Tells secret of success for Napolean and Patton.