Krishna: The Master Strategist

Lord Krishna is one of the greatest Management Gurus, whom we can emulate without second thought. He is the Mentor of Mentors, Coach of Coaches and Guru of all Motivational Gurus. His preachings should be followed by all the Strategists in the corporate world.

People say Krishna was the guy who made the war happen. Maybe true, but his words speak louder than his actions. If only his words were to be followed, we wouldn't have faced so many strategic problem which most of the companies are facing. Neither was there any need for MBA's. Because, MBA study is ultimately based on management prevalent in those times. We started forgetting the principles he preached but the western world gained from it and created Peter Drucker and Philip Kotler.

Going by Gita, the very purpose of Krishna incarnation was to remove adharma from the world. But a closer look at the epic clearly shows that the over riding factor that Krishna always keep in mind was protection of his clan and making sure people whom he favours are not being made to suffer. At every stage one can see him helping the Pandavas and the Yadava clan. He wanted to make the alliances of Pandavas strong in their quest for victory. One can say that this was in line with his ambition of bringing in dharma in the world. But one cannot see a clear link other than the fact that there was intense rivalry between the cousins and unethical methods were used by Kauravas to try and kill their cousins. But deep inside as for Krishna it should have been nothing more than helping his best friend Arjuna and his cousins come back to power. In all probability he wished that this would in turn provide respite to Yadavas too and would be beneficial for his own people.

His moves were very strategic. If one recalls the epic, one incident which was very significant in the Pandava's rising to power was the RajSuya Yagya. But for that to happen, King Jarasandh was to be defeated. None of the Pandavas could have defeated him in a battlefield with his forces fighting for him. So Krishna asked Bhim to prepare for a fight with Jarasandh (wrestling match). They approach Jarasandh in an unknown identity and urges the King to fight with Bhima. He accepts the challenge and that's it, you got your enemy.

He was brilliant in politics too. Politics by the way is not a bad word. Its a nice wordbut the system in India and the "netas" of this nation have changed the meaning of this word.

I don't know the number of people who must have seen the great epic. But for any Management student or a Prospective Strategist, one must read the Mahabharata as a student and not as a reader.