BUILT FOR WARStrategy for doing good in systems built against youMost good people don't lose because they're unskilled. They lose because they were handed the wrong manual.
Strategy for doing good in systems built against you. Ancient strategic thinking, brought into modern institutional life — to help practitioners survive the rooms where ordinary leadership advice fails.
Or try the Situation Room free — the book’s method as a live AI coach.
You were trained to believe that if you bring a good idea to a system, the system will eventually respond. But when your success threatens something the other side cannot survive, you are no longer in a slow process.
You are in a war that does not look like one.
What early readers are saying.
“A net positive future will not be built from the corner office alone. ‘Built for War’ is a field manual for people at every level working to change their institutions from within, often without formal authority. Corrales and Fujimoto explore how to understand systems, build coalitions, protect those taking risks, and turn moral purpose into progress that lasts. This book puts the tools of change where they belong: in the hands of anyone willing to lead.”Paul Polman, Business leader, investor, philanthropist
“This book’s language of war sits uneasily with the careful, kind change I’ve spent my career arguing for — and that friction is exactly why I trust it. Fujimoto and Corrales are honest about something most books on doing good from inside broken systems refuse to admit: good intentions are not a strategy, and systems built against you will not reward you for having them. What keeps this from becoming cynicism is the moral architecture they insist you carry alongside every tactic. Rebels who want to survive long enough to matter should read this.”Victor Montori, physician and care activist, founder of The Patient Revolution and author of Why We Revolt: a patient revolution for careful and kind care
“An important book with the urgent purpose of widening the aperture of strategic thinking and making transparent the often unstated rules of the game.”Kori Schake, Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute; former National Security Council and State Department official
“This book contains exceedingly wise strategic insights on organizational life that could be Machiavellian if they were not tightly constrained by the ‘moral architecture’ the authors provide and stick to. Built for War is the executive course in organizational survival and leadership that I wish I had taken many decades ago. The idea that “the room” may be a space for collaboration, or negotiation, or what amounts to organizational warfare --and that the effective participant or leader must first figure out what “room” they are in — is one of the book’s many breakthroughs. Strongly recommended for organizational leaders in many settings, including religious institutions.”Rev. Dr. David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics, Mercer University
“Built for War names what’s actually killing good work from the inside, then does something rarer: it teaches you to win without sacrificing who you are.”Dr. David Burkus, bestselling author of Best Team Ever
“Built for War is an important book for anyone who is serious about making change happen in the world. The authors do something I have rarely seen done so well: they take ideas from the strategic traditions of Sun Tzu, Machiavelli and Clausewitz and translate them into the world of social change and development.”Aimee Refaat, Senior Consultant, Development Finance, Former International Finance Corporation (IFC) - World Bank Group
“Ted and Antonio have a masterful touch for connecting battlefields, boardrooms, and classrooms. Built for War arms bottom-up, next-generation leaders with the top-down tactical thinking usually reserved for transactional players, drawing on lessons from history and a lifetime of their own battle scars to surface the chess match on the checkerboard. Readers are taken through a journey of empowerment, reflection, and discovery.”Jay Riskind, Founder and President, The Riskind Group; Board Member, Texas Public Finance Authority; Board of Advisors, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University; former Special Assistant to the U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology
Eyes you do not currently have. Hands you have not been trained to use.
This is not a book about becoming ruthless. It is a book about becoming harder to destroy without becoming the thing you are fighting.
- Tell collaboration, negotiation, and war apart before the misdiagnosis costs you
- Read what people stand to lose if your work succeeds
- Treat information as a strategic resource, not a debt you owe everyone
- Build coalitions, protect allies, and preserve your supply lines
- Give opponents exits instead of turning them into permanent enemies
- Choose which fights are worth fighting, and do good without being destroyed by it
Written by people who watched good leaders break.
Creator, Agile Action Strategy Process
For more than thirty years, he has been in the rooms where institutions decide what is really allowed to happen — and what quietly will not. His work has informed the redesign of more than 700 public schools and the deployment of over $1.6 billion in investment capital.
University of Houston–Clear Lake
At twenty-seven he ran for governor in Venezuela, then chose his family and left when the cost of staying grew too high. He carries twenty-five years inside institutions — teacher, administrator, professor, executive coach — into the work of preparing leaders to read the system clearly.
Bring a situation you’re actually in — and get a strategic read from the book.
The Situation Room is the book’s method as a live coach: describe a real fight you’re in, and it reads it through Built for War— which game you’re in, what the other side stands to lose, and the moves that actually apply. It’s a separate, free-to-start subscription — not the book itself.
The manual the authors wish they could have handed every leader they watched break.
Pre-order today and your copy arrives on release day, December 8, 2026. Or join the briefing list for launch updates and a sample chapter.