Overcoming “Impossible” Odds- A Byzantine Approach
Flavius Belisarius was a famous Byzantine general who lived from 505–565AD. He is most famous for being the top military commander under Emperor Justinian I while they attempted to reconquer portions of the fallen Western Roman Empire. Belisarius successfully led his armies against enemies throughout the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
A trademark of Belisarius’s military career was his constant ability to defeat numerically superior enemies. This theme, defeating enemies larger than yourself, is where our overall lesson comes from. Not only does size not necessarily matter, but it is indeed the method by which you attack a situation that is the most determinative on whether or not you achieve a positive outcome.
One of the easiest examples of this comes from the Battle of Dara (530AD) where Belisarius and his army of roughly 25,000 Byzantine soldiers defeated an invading Persian army of approximately 50,000 men. How did Belisarius do it?
Firstly, he arrayed his army in such a way that allowed him to pick apart the attacking army piece by piece. The Byzantine soldiers may have been outnumbered on the entire battlefield, but in each engagement, they had local numerical supremacy. This was possible due to the maneuverability of the Byzantine soldiers as well as the preparation of the battlefield that Belisarius had conducted prior to the start of the battle. Before the Persians even arrived at Dara, Belisarius had his soldiers dig trenches across the battlefield. These trenches were designed to funnel the Persians into terrain that the Byzantines could dominate. This is very similar to how Gerard Butler and his 300 Spartans held off the strange, vaguely orange make-up’d Persians at Thermopalye… manipulate the terrain to your advantage.
When the Persians arrived and launched their attack they would be forced into this terrain. Thus, giving the defending Byzantines an advantage that would negate the numerical superiority of the Persians. During the battle at each of the local engagements, Belisarius used both his infantry and cavalry to give his enemy multiple dilemmas to deal with. He didn’t just attack his enemy with one tool and using one specific method. Belisarius was constantly shifting and maneuvering his cavalry to outmaneuver the enemy while having his infantry anchored in position to provide stability on the battlefield.
What can we learn from Belisarius’s victory at Dara over 1500 years ago? Well, firstly victory is not 100% determined by being outnumbered, it is how you attack the problem that counts. So if right now at work you have more problems than solutions… that’s okay. Just because you have been tasked to do the work of three people and you’re just one person doesn’t mean you’re going to fail. I like to break down approaching problems into three categories; (1) preparation, (2) execution, and (3) evaluation. Oddly enough that also is the format of the remaining portion of this article. Hmm…
This leads us to lesson two from Dara, prepare your battlefield to give yourself a fighting chance at success. Everyone has a different battlefield. For some of us, it is the boardroom. For others, the new hybrid virtual/in-person classroom. For some their battlefield could very well be an actual battlefield. For some of us, it could be the battle raging inside our minds.
So what does this mean? To be entirely cheesy this means that if you’re failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.
Finding it hard to focus on your work at home because the place is a mess full of takeout and pizza boxes? Clean your room!
Do you have a big presentation coming up at work but you’re unfamiliar with the room you’ll be presenting in? Get there a week prior and recon the room!
Understand the situation you are facing and to the best of your ability create an environment that you can succeed in. Otherwise, your already uphill battle just was upgraded into going uphill both ways in the snow without boots or snow pants.
Moving into the second phase of problem-solving and the second lesson from Belisarius, execution. No, not executing your enemies in Gears of War (major violence alert if you look that up on YouTube). I mean the execution of your problem-solving strategy. When the battle began at Dara Belisarius had a plan. He knew that by having his infantry hold the center of the battlefield he could maneuver his cavalry to where they were needed. Thus providing the local numerical superiority that we talked about earlier. The core of this plan was flexibility. If your plan isn’t flexible be prepared to break. More importantly than having a flexible plan is actually be okay with flexing and changing your plan during execution.
Watch any of the James Bond movies, does anything ever go 100% according to plan? Spoiler alert, they don’t. If James was unable to adapt to the changing circumstances around him he would most assuredly have been stopped well before Daniel Craig ever got on screen. This can be seen with Belisarius here as well.
At Dara, the Persians nearly succeeded in breaking one of Belisarius’s flanks. The Persian cavalry smashed through one of the Byzantine cavalry units nearly causing a full-on rout (retreat) of the remainder of Belisarius’s troops. The Persians made it so far they nearly touched the gates of Dara’s walls! How did Belisarius react? He led his own personal bodyguard of bucellarii cavalry and smashed into the advancing Persian rear forcing them to withdraw.
By remaining flexible Belisarius contained a seriously fatal problem.
As the battle continued the overall strategy of separate the Persians into local engagements in which the Byzantines had the advantage paid dividends. Eventually, after sustaining heavy losses the Persian commander withdrew from the field. This leads us to the last stage, evaluation.
Now, anyone who has played the Total War franchise on their computer (which I HIGHLY recommend) knows that when that little white flag pops and the bad guys start running you chase those suckers down. Well, in ancient warfare that wasn’t always the case. Belisarius knew from past experience that one of the Persians’ favorite tactics was to “withdraw” from the field only to regroup and smash the now pursuing Byzantines who, in their own arrogance, spread out over the battlefield chasing them. How did he know this? Well, I just told you we were in the evaluation stage so… Belisarius knew not to pursue because he bothered to learn from past experiences and apply that knowledge to the future. This knowledge not only won him the battle but absolutely saved the lives of he and his men.
This one sounds like a no-brainer right? Well, it turns out for most of us learning from our own mistakes is quite difficult. Even more than that it is very difficult to learn from the mistakes of others. But it turns out that if you do learn both from yourself and others, you can actually make some serious progress.
But why is this difficult? Well, we as humans naturally don’t want to admit “hey I messed up big-time…” Why? Because it sucks! We all know that one person on the team who never takes responsibility for their mistakes and everyone isn’t the fondest of them.
If the mistake is yours let me tell you the best method I have found. When evaluating the situation it is best to pretend as if the lives of others depended on it. Why others? Well, that’s obviously because I am an amazingly selfless person who's just the best. All jokes aside that’s how I think about it because that is what the stakes were if Belisarius messed up.
His men would have been killed.
For me, if the problem was serious enough to go through the three-step program and if I messed it up then I need to think, “Well what if someone died over this? How would I fix it?”.
That type of thinking, while admittedly very dark and brutal, forces me to be honest with myself. That level of brutal honesty is where the progress is made.
Now that the Byzantine history ramblings mixed in with videogame references are done and over with let me just say this. (1) if you don’t know who Flavius Belisarius is and are remotely interested in military history… look him up you can thank me later. (2) you have to approach each problem differently. There is no cookie-cutter method to solve everything. But by understanding that if you prepare, remain flexible during the situation, and do a critical self-evaluation after the fact you have at the very least a better chance of success. Finally (3) everyone on this planet is capable of success. But only if you put the work in.
