I used to have a professor in Management school who often used to quote from this book, but somehow I never got my hands on this one for all these years. A few weeks back I found the book with a friend of mine and borrowed it for reading. For me, James Clavell was an author who was as famous as the Prime Minisiter of Timbuktoo...but what the heck...the original objective of reading this book was only a ’’self actualization’’ need, but what a revelation this has turned out to be....
Warning :
Take this book as light reading stuff at your own risk. Later, don’t come back to me and say that, you lost an opportunity to use the learnings of this book in real life.
The Original Author – Sun Tzu :
No one knows much about Sun Tzu, not even James Clavell gives light on the original author except for the fact that he wrote this book in 500 B.C...Darn Right! ...you heard me right the first time...in 500 B.C. Sun Tzu wrote this book in relative youth, and when the King of Wu came to know about this book, he made Sun Tzu the general of his army and for 20 years the kingdom never lost a battle it fought. So the story goes....
The Book - ’’The Art of War’’ :
The first thing that struck me...was the number 13. There are 13 chapters in this book but I suppose….the legendry unluckiness of the number 13 is not something that bothered Sun Tzu a lot.
The first chapter is called ’’Laying Plans’’, and believe me, in every chapter that I read, I could find parallels with modern day marketing warfare. Imagine, this man, wrote about the importance of Planning, Importance of proper market research before launching a campaign, etc., more than 2000 years before Philip Kotler and the other Gods (& demi-Gods) of marketing started telling us these same things after we shelled a few thousand dollars to listen to them speak!!!
Sun Tzu says ’’If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles, If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle...’’. Mind blowingly simple, is’nt it. Think over these words, is’nt this the same thing that today’s management gurus are talking about. Knowing your competition, knowing your strengths, analysing, planning....
There is a certain tensimon in this book , which can be felt as you read each chapter. After all , Imagine this, when Sun Tzu wrote about each of his tactics, he had in mind that every decision could save or result in human lives. It is almost as if, the book is written by a crouching mother tiger, all tensed up, every muscle alert, every olfactory muscle in peak performance, waiting to pounce...showing her children how to hunt for prey in the real world called....LIFE
The Thirteen Chapters in this book are :
1) Laying Plans
2) On Waging War
3) The Sheltered sword (my personal favorite)
4) Tactics
5) Energy
6) Weak points & strong
7) Maneuvering
8) Variation of Tactics
9) Army on the march
10) Terrain
11) The nine situations
12) Attack by fire &
13) The use of spies
...and like any good orator, SunTzu cites examples and stories from ancient Chinese history to substantiate what he has written.
This is a must read book for anybody who aims to be in the shoes of a successful leader. From the world of business, to the world of war, these principles by Sun Tzu have an amazing similarity of situations.
To end...I leave you with a a message from Sun Tzu’s war book….” The supreme act of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting…” (Mister George Bush …are you listening?????)
My recommendation on this book : Buy, beg, borrow...but read this book for sure
happy reading…
Moonraker
P.S : …now, now…you’re not planning to leave without adding a comment on this review…are you?