"We will find a way, or we will make one."  -Hannibal 

Learn how Intersil Corporation'splant in Mountaintop, PA overcame paradigms to achieve outstanding success: Leading the Way to Competitive Excellence: The Harris Mountaintop Case Study tells the story. (Note: this is not an excerpt from the book, although the book discusses similar material.)  

Why has the story of Hercules (or Heracles) been so popular throughout the centuries? Hercules was Alexander the Great's role model, and a Macedonian coin depicts Alexander in Hercules' famous lion skin. (See below to learn how Hercules got the lion skin). Roman signifers (standard bearers) wore lion skins in imitation of Hercules. There were various movies about Hercules in the mid-twentieth century (one with Arnold Schwarzenegger), and a cartoon series. There is currently a TV series that stars Kevin Sorbo (and whose kickoff episodes starred Anthony Quinn), and Disney released an animated Hercules movie in 1997.

Hercules

Alexander and the Gordian Knot (artwork by Beth Hollock)

Hercules' first Labor was to slay the Nemean Lion (whose skin he wears in the picture.) The lion's skin was invulnerable, and Hercules' arrows could not pierce it. Paradigm: the lion was therefore unkillable. Hercules realized that the lion's skin, while impenetrable, had to be flexible. He killed the lion by strangling it. Hercules killing the Nemean Lion: Classic Art TIFF, IMSI Image credits and copyright Hercules' second Labor was to kill the Lernean Hydra, a nine-headed venomous serpent. Hercules discovered that, whenever he cut a head off, two new ones grew in its place. Paradigm: the Hydra was therefore unkillable. Hercules told his companion Iolaus to burn each neck with a torch as soon as Hercules severed the head, and this kept them from growing again.  Hercules killing the Lernean Hydra: the goddess is probably Athena, and the chariot driver may be Iolaus. TIFF classic art from IMSI. Another Labor was to clean the Augean Stables, which hadn't been cleaned for ten years. Paradigm: Hercules would have to do a lot of shoveling. Instead, he diverted two rivers through the stables, and washed them clean in a day. (See story at right.) Hercules had to fight the giant wrestler Antaeus, who was invincible as long as he stood on the ground. The hero lifted him into the air, and strangled him. Bust of Alexander the Great. TIFF classic art from IMSI

There was a legend that whoever unraveled the Gordian Knot (in picture above) would rule Asia. Alexander had to do this for public relations purposes, but the knot could not be untied. Alexander realized that the challenge was to undo the knot, not untie it, so he drew his sword and cut it. The fortress of Tyre was on an island, and unapproachable by infantry. Paradigm: Tyre was invincible. Alexander may have remembered the story of the Augean Stables (see story at left) when he altered geography by building an isthmus from the mainland to Tyre. The fortress fell, and the isthmus is still there today. An Indian noble had a castle on a mountain, and Alexander wanted him to submit. The noble said, "Unless you have men with wings, you'll never take this fortress!" Alexander sent some mountaineers up the mountain at night (about 90 percent survived) with orders to wave white cloths from the top. He then told the noble, "There are your winged men!" The man was so overcome with surprise that he gave in, although it is doubtful that Alexander could have beaten him. At the Battle of the Issus, King Darius reinforced his position with a hedge of palisades. Paradigm: the strongly-defended Persian position was invincible. Alexander saw an entirely different picture. The palisade told him that the Persians were conceding to him the initiative; they were, as Helmuth von Moltke (1800-1891) would say, "awaiting the law of the opponent." The palisade also tethered the Persians, since they could not enjoy its protection if they tried to maneuver. The Macedonians, of course, drove the Persians from the field. Passivity, and letting the competitor dictate the contest's terms, is as (or more) dangerous today as it was then. In general, Alexander's career was a series of one "impossible" achievement after another, of doing things that everybody "knew" couldn't be done.

Hercules wrestles Cerberus. TIFF classic art from IMSI

Hercules slaying the Lernian Hydra. TIFF classic art from IMSI

• Alexander was a man of truly epic proportions, but playwrights and scriptwriters have largely overlooked him. The movie Alexander the Great starred Richard Burton, the famous Shakespearean actor: interestingly enough, Shakespeare himself never wrote a play about Alexander. Peter Cushing, recently known for his role as the villain in Star Wars, played the Athenian general Memnon in Alexander the Great. (Memnon was actually from Rhodes, and he was among the few commanders who ever gave Alexander a serious challenge.)
• Achilles, a hero of Homer's Iliad, was another of Alexander's role models. Alexander slept with a copy of the Iliad under his pillow.
• Alexander won the horse Bucephalus ("Ox-head" or "Bull-head") when he was a boy. No one could mount the horse, but Alexander noticed that the horse feared his own shadow. When Alexander turned the horse so he could not see his shadow, he became docile. His father, King Philip II, saw his son's potential and remarked, "You'll have to find another kingdom, Macedonia isn't going to be big enough for you."
• Alexander's teacher was the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle. We think of Aristotle as a high-minded intellectual, but he (and his contemporaries) had some interesting ideas. The movie shows him giving a Hitler-like speech about Greek cultural (if not racial) superiority over the Persians, and urging the Greeks to either kill or enslave them.
• Alexander's mother Olympias makes Lady Macbeth, Aggripina (Nero's mother, of the famous mushroom recipe), and Lucretia Borgia look like wimps. The movie shows her encouraging Pausanius to murder her ex-husband, and describes how she threw the new Queen's baby (a rival to Alexander) into a fire. This was merely the tip of the iceberg...
• Famous quote: "It is men who endure toil and dare danger that achieve glorious deeds, and it is a wonderful thing to live with courage and to die leaving behind an everlasting renown."

• "Speed is the essence of war": (Sun Tzu, The Art of War). Suvorov wrote, "The enemy doesn't expect us, reckons us 100 versts away, and if a long way off to begin with, 200, 300 or more– suddenly we're on him, like snow on the head; his head spins. Attack with what comes up, with what God sends; the cavalry to begin, smash, strike, cut off, don't let slip, hurra!" (Tsouras, Warriors' Words, 1992, 31). The words carry the spirit of speed, the enemy's confusion and surprise, the attack's impact, and the momentum of the followup.
• Suvorov and the Gordian Knot: Before storming the Praga Fortress in 1794, Suvorov instructed his soldiers in his usual rough and energetic Russian style. What if a scaling ladder was too short to reach the top of the wall? A limiting paradigm was the assumption that you needed a ladder to get over a wall. "Bayonet into the wall– climb on to it, after him another and a third. Comrade help comrade!" (Tsouras, 1992, 35)
• Suvorov, Patton, and "The Western Way of War": General Patton summarizes "the Western way of war" in one sentence. "Grab 'em by the nose and kick 'em in the [pants]!" The Bronze Age Greeks introduced this decisive mentality, which helped them destroy armies whose fighting styles were tentative or indecisive. This was the philosophy behind the Greek phalanx (and later the Roman legion, which used the short sword at close quarters). Suvorov said, "The bullet's an idiot, the bayonet's a fine chap." The bayonet did, in fact, know something the bullet didn't; human psychology. It fell to Patton to explain this. "…very few people have ever been killed with the bayonet or the sabre, but the fear of having their guts explored with cold steel in the hands of battle-maddened men has won many a fight" (Tsouras, 1992, 47)

Hear the rattle on the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the hoplite's leveled spear

Still more clearly as a Roman
Can I see the legion close
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.

from "Through a Glass, Darkly," by George S. Patton, Jr.  27 May, 1922