B2P Consulting: KDA Organisation Structure™

The Mahabharata is one of the longest epic poems in world literature and it assumes an even greater significance in the context of Hindu religion.

The innermost narrative kernel of the Mahabharata tells the story of two sets of paternal first cousins—the five sons of the deceased king Pandu [pronounced PAAN-doo] (the five Pandavas [said as PAAN-da-va-s]) and the one hundred sons of blind King Dhritarashtra [Dhri-ta-RAASH-tra] (the 100 hundred Dhartarashtras [Dhaar-ta-RAASH-tras])—who became bitter rivals, and opposed each other in war for possession of the ancestral Bharata [BHAR-a-ta] kingdom with its capital in the "City of the Elephant," Hastinapura [HAAS-ti-na-pu-ra], on the Ganga river in north central India. What is dramatically interesting within this simple opposition is the large number of individual agendas the many characters pursue, and the numerous personal conflicts, ethical puzzles, subplots, and plot twists that give the story a strikingly powerful development.

During the great war between the Pandavas and Kauravas, people took up various roles. CHR Global has been inspired by the roles that different people took up during the war, and extrapolated that into the structure that an organisation should have.

K–Krishna

[Image of Krishna] Lord Krishna took up the role of steering the chariot for Arjuna (one of the Pandavas). He had the power to see the future, the past, and the present and direct Arjuna to do things which would ultimately lead to the victory of Pandavas over Kauravas.

CHR Global calls it the Strategist role. They know the past, they know the future, where the company should be headed to, what is the strategic direction of the organisation. These are the people who make the + / - decisions in the organisation related to products, people, locations, customers, suppliers etc.

D–Dronacharya

[Image of Dronacharya] Dronacharya's legend as a great teacher and warrior exceeds Hindu mythology by strongly influencing Indian social traditions. Dronacharya was the royal guru to the Kauravas and the Pandavas. He was a master of advanced military arts and trained both groups on combat.

In essence, he played a role of a Coach, who developed people (Kauravas and Pandavas) an developed processes (tools and techniques at that time) in order that these people become the greates warriors on the planet. Although he was also a part of the war between the two groups, but CHR Global envisions that this layer in the organisation structure does not get into the daily battles and handles the development of people and processes only.

A–Arjuna

[Image of Arjuna] Arjuna was a master archer and played a central role in the conflict between the Pandavas and their adversaries, the sons of Dhritarashtra known as the Kauravas. To begin with, Arjuna was reluctant to take part in battle because of the slaughter he knew he would cause in the enemy ranks, which included many of his own relatives. He was persuaded by his charioteer and close friend Lord Krishna, to change his mind. Their dialogue about issues involved in war—courage, a warrior’s duty, the nature of human life and the soul, and the role of Gods—forms the subject of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the key episodes in the epic Mahabharata.

Arjuna was supposed to fight the war with his own hands, under the vision of his own charioteer, Krishna, and the coaching of Dronacharya.

CHR Global believes that there are only three types of roles in an organisation, and those are of Krishna, Dronacharya and Arjuna. Therefore, when we do restructuring exercises for the clients, we focus on creating only three layers. All the activities being done by executives can be categorized under these three headers. As there was no overlap in the functioning of the three gentlemen in Mahabharata, so there should be none within the organisation.

Top 5–6 people involved in the Krishna level work, next 12–15 people involved in the Dronacharya work, and the rest of the organsaition involved in Arjuna work. All the work thus distributed is “Mutually Exclusive and Completely Exhaustive”