“When some are seen advancing and some retreating, it is a lure.”
A mixed advance-and-retreat is designed to pull you in; recognize the lure and do not bite.
Chapter 9’s catalogue of signs includes manufactured confusion: when some are seen advancing and some retreating, it is a lure. The mixed signal exploits a commander’s pattern-matching — half the picture reads as collapse, and collapse invites pursuit. Sun Tzu’s rule inverts the instinct: incoherent movement at your front is not weakness, it is a performance staged for your interpretation.
A public company’s stock wobbles as insiders sell modest amounts while the company simultaneously beats guidance — advancing and retreating in the same frame. Two acquirers read it. One sees disarray and moves; the acquisition discovers the "disorder" was a consolidation of shares ahead of a strategic process, and the buyer is now inside someone else’s timeline. The other waited for coherent movement and read the actual play.
Not all mixed signals are lures — organizations genuinely are incoherent sometimes, and Chapter 9 assumes you have watched long enough to know their baseline. The tell is efficiency: a real retreat is expensive and consistent; a lure is cheap theater with the retreat and the advance oddly balanced for your benefit. When confusion seems staged for an audience of exactly you, you are the audience.