alexander

72 THE WISDOM OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
later murdered by his own generals, as we will see in Chapter
3, Lesson 25, ‘‘Death of Darius III.’’ The army captured
most of Darius’s personal belongings at the town of Arbela.
Inferences and Allegations
Never again did the Persians field an army against Alexander
after Gaugamela. So humiliating was the defeat that the
Persians never again regrouped. The fate of Darius, which
is traced to Alexander’s relentless pursuit of him and those
who fled with him, was the demise of the Achaemenid dynasty.
Leading Lessons
I am not one to blithely advise mass firing to ensure culture
change. However, sometimes deconstruction is the only way
to begin a merger. Always finish the job. A wounded and
humiliated workforce is a dangerous workforce—eliminate
the division or integrate it into your organization, but do
not leave the job half done. When resistors cannot be won
over to the new culture, you must eliminate them or find a
way to work around them. For example, General Motors
(GM) encountered extreme resistance from its unions because
of decades of poor relations. The unions could not be
‘‘fired,’’ so GM set up a new division, Saturn, which enabled
it to establish new work rules, a new culture, and a new
competitive line of cars.
The idea of building alliances by deconstruction occurs
not just at the level of organizations. At the level of an entire