During my MBA days, I fell in love with strategy and had devoted over half my time studying the domain. I once chanced upon Sun Tzu’s Art of War. After reading tons of research paper on the subject, at first Sun Tzu failed to enchant me, as it wasn’t any way related to Firm level Business Strategy, my prominent area of interest in strategy. It felt more like random filmi gyaan from a dilapidated budhau, but just for the heck of it, I opted to read it. Maybe as I had seen that book in the cabin of my first boss prompted me to read it. And for a very innocent reason, I thought to test the effectiveness of its preaching.
I did and still do strongly believe that the best of the best strategies are never known. For the essence of strategy also lies in one’s ability to replicate itself time and again against the clueless opponents. It reminded me of a personal conversation I had with a famous cricketer of the Indian side as he narrated me the team’s plan of batting against a particular bowler. Though the outcome was evidently visible to a normal spectator, the intention and the extent of predetermined strategy could never be fathomed.
And so one day I began my experiment with the art of war. I immersed myself into developing a meticulous plan comprising of a series of tactics, then named by me “the 3rd smiling Buddha” (I had two smiling Buddha statues on my desk that time) by me which was aimed at affecting (not annihilating….after all it was just an experiment, not a real big grudge; btw a line of orkut profile goes “ I rarely keep grudges, but when I do I plan my revenges meticulously) a neighboring madhouse molusc. And probably only then was I able to appreciate during the execution of this what I thought of an almost perfectly framed plan, the extent of tactical maneuvers required. It made me realize the brilliance of thoughts put forth by Sun Tzu and the scope of its wide applicability; more so for tactical moves rather than long term strategic actions.
Coming back to “The 3rd Smiling Buddha”, the initial plan though was formulated sometime in October was for a shorter duration of executing it over the next 1.5 months, but as time went by, I did made it full fledged plan with multiple options and back up plans to be executed over the next 4 months, yet most events turned out be almost as perfectly as were anticipated and as designed. A plan which involved multiple actors, inspired and at times agitated to play the roles designed for them, a host of unattended, seemingly inconsequential but critical influencers and few unwarranted, unintended casualties on the mollusc’s side on the way. Yes, there were many with their own personal agenda on board, but they had absolute no idea of the underlying scheme of things which were to unfurl over a phase of time. In the meantime, a high profile drama involving multiple generations was created against the mollusc, and then withdrawn just to make the dumb creature underestimate the opposition’s proficiency forte and put an indelible wound on it to be exploited at a later stage. And it did put more than a spot of doubt in the minds of the regulators, which was so well exploited. Poor mollusc tried to be very aggressive, may be he didn’t know that this wasn’t the real assault. Tzu had mentioned decades back “To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence.” The master further wrote “Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective”. I still do vividly remember that call summoned by the mollusc inviting all and sundry to announce his victory and how I just kept mum as the mollusc’s top monk took to top gears.
I seriously feel like giving myself a pat on the back for the patience I showed while carrying on with the plan, despite of absolutely high work load, little changes in tactics that were required from time to time, adding supporters and at one of time detractors on both sides as planned and the efforts required to create appropriate buzz at the correct time, to identify catalysts, influencers, and the flux material was really some dedicated work. The time required to create seemingly unrelated events (which I term as “chaos” or codes) in such an apt fashion that the chaos appears to be the precursor of the real intended event. Though I did underestimate the nose poking ability and limelight seeking tendency of an influencer and a couple of catalyst, it thankfully didn’t really create any irreversible damage to attainment of the main objective. Favorable guards were provided to the mollusc for fencing his gate to euphoria, though it was ensured no casualties take place on the guards front when the lightning struck. The wound now was getting deeper and deeper and the populace was agitated. As in cricket so in war; the timing is everything. As the day of the mollusc’s doom was getting closer, the schemer that the mollusc was, it believed it had the key to the lock, and the key it did had, but not for the lock which really mattered. Yaa, though the climax got delayed by a day than what was designed, but then luck as they say does count.
The commandment for deception did say “Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.” It was just like a game of chess. Just the opponent doesn’t know who the opposite player is. He believes he has the control to change the rules of the game, whereas you actually influence it one at a time, without his knowledge. He believes that he controls his pawns atleast, whereas you make some of his pawns tread the path you intend. And there is a third one man army out there ( and you will try guessing it and I bet you would guess this wrongly), which you make your opponent believe, is supporting him, only to pull out at the last critical moment. Though I ensured that the mollusc underestimates my ability of striking at him, the mollusc aided his downfall by leaving some very critical positions open, which I grabbed with open hands. Though the mollusc did control fully one of the most vital influencer and decision maker, the ferocity of the populace converted him to a neutral spectator in this contest. It was camouflage, deception at its absolute prime for me. It was not just one knockout punch but a series of small punches carefully planned.
Over 5 months since the initial script was written came the icing on the cake, when the mollusc fell into the final trap and rejoiced his victory oblivious to the fact that his seemingly victory was a event predetermined after a hell lot of pleading and interconnection by me and my smirk that evening was worth a million dollars. I would admit that certain events panned out as expected and a tinge of luck was on my side during this experiment on the art of war. Though the mollusc never got courageous enough to directly confront me, but as they say deewaaroon ke bhi kaan hote hai. Also, I would definitely acknowledge that I do sincerely believe that the mollusc was the best schemer around and I couldn’t have got a better subject. After all, I just can’t stand loud jeering music. And yes, the master said “Never share everything you know” for information by influence edges over influence by information.
