“In the wise leader's plans, considerations of advantage and of disadvantage will be blended together.”
Every plan carries both gain and loss; weigh them blended, not separately, or you misjudge.
Chapter 8’s planning doctrine: in the wise leader’s plans, considerations of advantage and of disadvantage will be blended together. Not weighed sequentially — blended. The verse attacks the common planning failure where upside and downside live in different documents, different meetings, different mental states, and never actually meet before the decision does.
An acquisition case contains a beautiful upside model — synergies, TAM, accretion — and a risk appendix nobody presented. The deal closes; the appendix happens. A rival acquirer writes its memo differently: every synergy line has its failure mode priced beside it, every integration benefit shares a page with its cost. When the board debates, it debates one blended object rather than a dream with footnotes. Its deals close less often and survive far longer.
Blending is not averaging into tepid decisions — the wise leader still commits boldly, but to a plan that already contains its risks rather than one that discovers them. Nor is it pessimism; the disadvantage analysis exists to make the aggressive move survivable. Sun Tzu blends both because either alone misleads.