In many of my past articles there have been references to historical events as examples of how ideas and strategies can be applied in today’s world.

 

I find it interesting how events and behaviors from ancient times are still viable today and still occur in our society.

 

The reality is that the human race has gained great technical knowledge, yet many of our human behaviors still remain just as they were in history.

 

It is because of this we can take those history lessons and help us in our strategies today.

 

Here is one from the Greeks and Persians around 500BC. It all started…….when the Persian Empire gained land in Turkey that had been settled by Greeks. It was fine for awhile until the Greek settlement asked for help from Athens Greek to sustain an uprising against the Persians.

 

The city is burned and the Persian King is beyond irritation. Over the next 80 years the Persians hold revenge in regard to the Greeks and this is passed on to the next generation. (Have any examples of this today? The behaviors are still here.)

 

Finally the son of the Persian King heads to Greece with a huge army and Calvary of thousands with the intent to burn Athens.

 

The Greeks know the Persians are on their way and many different strategies are employed to ultimately defeat the huge Persian force.

 

Here are some of those strategies:

 

Maximize your strength of a few to overcome the many.

 

The Greeks were tactical fighters and used the landscape to their advantage.

 

On the other hand the Persians had conquered the open plains with large quick attacks using Calvary against moderately trained small forces.

 

Now the highly disciplined Greek Spartans used narrow passes to squeeze the large Persian force into a small manageable front. (The recent movie “The 300” is about one of these battles. 300 Spartans against 30,000 Persians.) Thus the Greeks held off a huge force and ultimately drove them out.

 

Are you using your “landscape” to maximize your strengths or are you trying to win your battles on someone else’s terms? How many different fronts are you on or are you focused on one front you can control?

 

Total cooperation with your former enemies to take on a larger enemy.

 

Ancient Greece at this time was a group of independent city states that fought each other for power and land. Now they joined together to take on the Persians. (This later led to the formation of a unified Greece under the father of  Alexander the Great.)

 

Are you talking to your competitors or creating alliances that help you and your partners reach their goals? It is amazing to me how often organizations or leaders will not even consider talking or sharing for mutual benefit. Yet there are plenty of examples of how cooperative efforts have had exponential results for all parties.

 

Discipline and training:

 

Think you had a tough childhood? In Sparta Greece the boys were taken at age seven and put into the army. Over the next decade they were trained how to fight, be disciplined under pressure and become some of the toughest warriors every. Can you understand how 300 Spartans could take on 30,000 Persians! 

Do you realize how often I hear; “Yea I took a sales program or management program once. But things are ok, I don’t need anymore training.” Can your small team take on the larger force with the discipline and training you currently have? What about you personally, what could you be better and stronger at? When is the last time your sharpened your tools or added to them?

Recently I talked with a service business owner that made a commitment to continual development of his team every year for the past five years. He directly attributed the triple digit growth of his company to the continued development of his people!  

Superior tools:

 

The Persians had their advantages in open fields and quick battles. The Greeks had superior technologies in their tools.

 

The Greeks had developed tools such as an advanced shield that was far more effective in defense as well as offense. They had light weight armor (not unlike our modern Kevlar) made of layered linen and leather that could stop a weapons penetration or blow. The weapons they used were superior in strength and uses in battle.

 

The Persians were no match one on one, much less against a disciplined group that maximized the effectiveness of these better tools.

 

What advantage do your tools have? Are they the same as everyone else or are you working to develop something that is better? (This is why we went out to find the Persuasion and Influence tools and developed Reverse Engineering and the Five Levels of Questioning. They are different and more effective than other tools.)

 

Using Outcome Based Thinking

 

The conflict between the Greeks and Persians was not just on land, but on the sea as well.

 

The vastly outnumbered Greek ships used several strategies to hold off a Persian force five times their size!

 

First they again used the narrows to control the effectiveness of the larger fleet. The other strategy they employed was to attack first but late in the day! The battle could only go on as long as there was light so by attacking later in the day the Greeks limited the length of the battle and minimized their losses.

 

So many times we just go at it like we always have or others have. What if we step back and think about how we could do it differently? Might we come up with a different way to approach the same problem and come out with a better solution? (Outcome Based Thinking requires one to take many views to come up with multiple possible solutions.)

 

 

Now there are many more comparisons we can make just off this one point in history. The real point is, are we simply repeating ancient errors or learning and growing from our experiences?

 

By the way, in about 150 years Alexander the Great from the united country of Greece conquered the entire Persian Empire! Talk about payback!

 

That is the power of using strategies that maximize your strengths rather than simply repeating the same old approach. What are your strengths and how can you create strategies that capitalize on them?

 

Take the ideas and put them against your current strategies, see if they can improve.

 

 

History can improve our tomorrows or have us repeat the errors of yesterday. The choice is yours!

 

Till next week, keep learning!

To your success!

 

Harlan Goerger
National Director of Training

© Harlan Goerger 6/2007