crisis
10 Lessons That Inspired Alexander The Great, Part 9
May 2024
Alexander The Great set into motion the events that would create the modern world. He studied and was inspired by Xenophon, a student-of-Socrates turned mercenary. Xenophon’s lessons on crisis leadership are timeless. In this series, we recount his epic, true story of war and update this ancient wisdom to support you and your business the next time crisis hits.
STORY RECAP: Cyrus the Younger hires Greek mercenaries, The Ten Thousand, to kill his brother Artaxerxes II and seize the throne of the Persian Empire. Cyrus lies to The Ten Thousand about the purpose of their mission, excusing it as a law-keeping exercise against barbarians. When The Ten Thousand grow suspicious of the mission, they rebel. Their general Clearchus convinces them to trust Cyrus and continue with the mission. The Greeks are embroiled with in-fighting when Cyrus negotiates a shaky truce.
Artaxerxes and his army surprise Cyrus and the Greeks with an attack. The Greeks fend of the Persians. Stuck in tunnel vision, Cyrus attacks his brother and is killed. Xenophon pauses to honor and memorialize Cyrus’ good qualities as a leader.
The Greeks are stranded in the heart of the Persian Empire, surrounded by enemy forces. Fear and panic wash over the soldiers as they begin a retreat. The Persians invite the Greek generals for a peace-keeping truce. All the Greek leaders are spontaneously and simultaneously executed. Xenophon asks each soldier to become a leader. The army democratically reorganizes its leadership and decides to resume the retreat. The Greeks quickly adapt to their new circumstances and innovate new warfare tactics.
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Lesson #9: How Structure Keeps Men Alive
When an employee delivers bad results, is it their fault?
For leaders that move to immediately blame, the problem somehow exists “out there”.
We’ve seen companies that rotate people in and out. The employee fails or burns-out over and over. Yet somehow the company is convinced it is the fault of the people.
Employees are exactly what they are trained to be.
Each and every failure should be met with the same question: where did we fail in leadership?
Moreover, employees are responding to the system that they have been placed within. They act according to the unwritten rules, entanglements, and hidden social hierarchies around them.
When we bring the system into order, then any qualified person can step in and do that job with some proper onboarding and training.
Repeated failures are a signal, the machine is not working!
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On and on this dynamic persisted for weeks on end. Through deserts. Through snowy mountains.
The Greeks marched forward and the Persians attacked their rear.
After adapting their tactics, the Greeks successfully employed slingers and cavalry to repel the Persian attacks. Yet the Persians never quite changed anything about their battle plan.
Overall, the Greeks were making progress: march out, march forth.
Except in one area: crossing through narrow passages.
Whether a mountain pass, a bridge, or a shallow section of a river, the Greeks were taking heavy casualties at each crossing.
Xenophon had organized the troops in a square, with food supplies and animals protected in the center.
But in narrow passage, chaos and confusion erupted amongst the soldiers, allowing the Persians to attack.
“What happened, when a bridge had to be crossed or other passage effected, was, that each unit of the force pressed on in anxiety to get over first, and at these moments it was easy for the enemy to make an attack.”
This plan was not working.
The generals decided to make a change.
They organed the men into 6 divisions. Now at any narrow crossing, the front would go first, the supplies second, and the rearguard third.
The flanks would tun out in a wheel pattern. Thus, creating room for the army to pass through in a calm and orderly manner.
With this new innovation in battle formation, the Greeks became even more efficient in repelling the Persians without taking on loses.
Things were starting to look up for the mercenaries!
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Presented with a recurring challenge (and consecutive negative feedback), the Greeks once again took matters into their own hands.
They chose to change their system.
Their innovative experimentation allowed them to stay literally and metaphorically ahead of the Persians at every step.
While these solutions may be the least “sexy” on paper, they are the ones that yield the most dividends.
For when an organization has the right structure, each person, each interaction, task is executed with order and harmony. The organization can reach a state of flow.
Succeeding without distractions.
And while few of us will likely ever need to implement a flank-wheel battle strategy, may we remember that repeated failure is a sign that a structural issue exists. Where structural issues exist, leadership is sorely needed.
