The Art of War

It’s been almost 8 months since I joined LIBA (one of the most reputed business schools in the country) and I have realised its about time I started a business blog. There have been a lot of events and programs here which have added great value to my business education. But I think the most enriching one would be the “Guest Lecture Series” started under the umbrella of the “Beyond Management Program”. We have at least two Guest lecturers coming to LIBA from around the World giving lectures on various aspects of management and current issues. But that is not what I want to talk about in this post. It is that the most often quoted book in this guest lecture series is a book that was written way back in the 6^th Century BC. Yup, that’s right. And the Book is called “The Art of War” written by a Chinese general named Sun Tzu.

So, what is this book about??? Well Wikipedia has this to say  “The Art of War is one of the oldest books on military strategy in the world. It is the first and one of the most successful works on strategy and has had a huge influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, and beyond. Sun Tzu was the first to recognize the importance of positioning in strategy and that position is affected both by objective conditions in the physical environment and the subjective opinions of competitive actors in that environment. He taught that strategy was not planning in the sense of working through a to-do list, but rather that it requires quick and appropriate responses to changing conditions. Planning works in a controlled environment, but in a competitive environment, competing plans collide, creating unexpected situations.”

Well I have already started reading it and believe me it quite interesting. I feel the book has something for everyone and is a must read for Business Students.

Below are two links for an online version of the book. The first one has a commentary on the text while the other is just the plain translation. Have fun reading it.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17405/17405.txt

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/132/132.txt

“One hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the most skillful. Seizing the enemy without fighting is the most skillful.”