Utkarsh Rai

Alexander’s ambition to extend his empire beyond Persia took him to the banks of river Jhelum. He gave ample rest to his tired troops before launching the attack. When Alexander decided to proceed with his mission, he faced monsoons which had flooded the Jhelum. He had not spent time in understanding India’s geography and climate. Had he done that, he could have been better off fighting the battle before monsoon itself. The Jhelum was flooded and crossing it posed a challenge.

Lesson: Each intermediate milestone poses a new set of challenges. Upfront planning will help in realistically determining the complexity of the milestone and thereby taking a suitable execution path.

Alexander’s past experience led him to believe that his army could easily defeat any enemy. He thought bad weather was a deterrent to enemy too. But to his surprise, he found King Porus was guarding the south bank of the Jhelum. Porus was keeping an eye on every movement of Alexander and his army and it was, therefore, difficult to cross the river without getting noticed. He started putting physiological pressure on Porus by doing such activities on the other side of the bank which could give impression that they had come for a big battle and had a large force and good supplies to take care along drawn battle. This pressure acted adversely for Alexander as he came to know that in a few days Porus was expecting help from his allies which Porus asked due to the false impression given by Alexandar. Being an aggressor of the battle he was left with no choice but to cross Jhelum at the earliest and attack Porus’s army.

Lesson: Mind games are very important. Most of the time, in spite of having many pluses, a person can psychologically get defeated. This is where experience makes a lot of difference. A seasoned leader like Porus did not fall in such traps set up by Alexander

Alexander made a plan. He left most of his troops under the command of General Craterus, and moved a small portion of his troop in the night towards north from where he wanted to cross the Jhelum. He advised Creatus that if he found Porus troops moving towards his crossing point, then he should cross the Jhelum and join the Macedonian army. Alexandar wanted to surprise Porus with an attack, but his army took much more time to cross the river and by then Porus had sensed it. This led to a prolonged war rather than the quick one against Alexandar’s plan.

Lesson: Project could slip; go over budget and land up with depleted resources. This could happen when the leader and his team become complacent, have tasted multiple successes and therefore take new challenges lightly and do not spend enough time in thinking through.

Porus left behind a small army to check Craterus’ forces from crossing the Jhelum. He moved with the rest of his troops to meet Alexander army. On noticing that Porus’s army consisted of a large number of war elephants, Alexander got worried as his horses refused to go near them. This posed a big problem for Alexander.
Alexander did not give up and started encircling Porus’ army. His superior archers on horses started weakening the cavalry of Porus. But Porus used his war elephants efficiently. Alexander had no other option but to send infantry to attack these elephants. This led to huge loss to Alexander’s army, as many got crushed under elephants’ feet.

Lesson: One should play by one’s own strength and avoid providing opportunity to opponent to strike where one is weak. Alexander’s cavalry was better and he used it well. He was weak in handling elephants therefore delayed attacking them.

Slowly and steadily, Alexander’s army started making progress but with high casualties. His army won the battle. Porus was brought in front of Alexander. He asked him on how he should be treated. Porus responded the way one king should treat another king. Alexander was already impressed by Porus and returned not only his kingdom but also some other kingdoms which he won and asked him to rule them under his banner.

Lesson: Just like Porus, one needs to learn how to negotiate from the point of weakness. Though he lost the sovereignty of the kingdom, but he started ruling a bigger one. Similarly during organization restructuring due to merger, acquisition or any internal event; a person might be relabeled at a perceived lower position but he might have more challenges. Rather than worry about the label, one should focus on content of the challenges.

Alexander’s army proceeded to conquer more territories in India, but his army revolted on the Beas banks. They were tired of fighting battles so far away from homeland. Some of them were homesick too. Indian monsoon was also dampening their morale. The fear of fighting a large elephants of Magadha army had added to their reason to revolt. Finally, Alexander agreed to return to Greece and died on his way back at Babylon. The question can be asked: Why could not Alexander recruit new people from Persia and other occupied territories into his army who could provide new blood, new enthusiasm and new passion? The new recruits could be supervised by their experienced commanders. He could have taken help from Porus’s army too in moving inside India.

Lesson: Leader should have right assessment of his team’s morale, motivation and strength. A successful, but burnt-out team could not deliver the lofty goals as envisioned by the leader. It is important to do job rotation and induct new skills to undertake new challenges.