What Ved Vyas and Ganesha taught us about consulting?

– The ‘not-so-talked-about’ Mahabharat

story

The training programs in many top consulting organizations are directed towards developing well-
rounded consultants. A consultant who well equipped with skills in research, analysis, excellent oral
and written communication skills. To develop a consultant who is excellent at business development,
executing assignments, client management and debt collection. The ultimate objective being, that a
consultant should be able to produce best deliverables/ documents.

Original narrator did not write best documents in the world

Which are the best documents prepared globally? Something which were accepted by a lot of
people and which withstood the test of time. The famous religious texts, Quran, Bible and Bhagvat
Geeta. Not all these documents were written by the original narrator, either followers or other
writers documented them.

Let’s take the case of Mahabharata. This document was so epic, that Bhagavat Geeta was an
annexure to this document. The credit for writing Mahabharat goes to Maharishi Ved Vyas.
However, the writer was Shri Ganesh, who wrote under the guidance the Ved Vyas.

The story of writing Mahabharat goes like this, when Ved Vyas came up with the idea of
documenting Mahabharat, he approached lord Brahma. Ved Vyas asked Brahma for helping him
with the writing part. Brahma suggested that Shri Ganesh is a suitable candidate who can assist in
this purpose. When Ved Vyas approached Shri Ganesh, Ganesh had one condition, Ved Vyas should
not pause while he is narrating the story. Ved Vyas accepted the condition and presented one
condition for Shri Ganesh, that Ganesh should understand everything he is writing. So began their
journey for preparing one of the best documents in the history of humanity.

Let us examine the case of ved vyas in the contemporary context of consulting.

Ved vyas undertook an extensive research on the subject. He collected all the relevant data, talked
to multiple stakeholders for verifying the story. Identified chronology, sequence of events and
developed insights from those events. After he completed the research, he felt the need of a good
writer to compile his finding and write them in a form that people at large can understand it.

When Ganesh was approached, he had a simple reason for putting that condition, he didn’t want to
do any re-work. When the job was being allocated, he wanted Ved Vyas to have complete clarity on
the expected outcome. He wanted that the research, analysis etc. should have been completed in
full.

Similarly, Ved Vyas also had a simple reason for his condition, if Ganesh can’t understand what he is
writing, he can’t articulate the story in a manner, people at large would understand. That’s how the
teacher apprentice relationship works in consulting. One resource would undertake the detailed
assessment and the resource who is good at writing would undertake the writing part.

Could we have the Mahabharata, as we know it, if Ved Vyas were to do all the work by himself

Just imagine, when Ved Vyas approached Brahma, had brahma told him to write the first draft
himself and send it to Ganesh for review. Without sitting and working together on the document, I
don’t know what story would we have seen today.
Brahma recognized that there are horses for courses, everybody in the team must play by their
strength. The lions are not the kings of this jungle, it’s a wolf’s world now. The winners are the best
teams, who hunt in packs.