It is often said that “a little knowledge can be dangerous,” but I have found that an accumulation of many bits of knowledge or experiences gathered over a lifetime can have a very powerful effect.
About 100 A.D., Rome was still a dominant force on the world scene. One of her generals, Quintus Sertorius, found himself far from home in Spain with a vast territory to defend and an army composed almost entirely of undisciplined conscripts. So he called them together to teach them an important lesson on what it would take to be a successful army.
To make his point he gathered the army around the most physically impressive warrior in his ranks along with his smallest and least conspicuous soldier. In front of the great warrior he placed a small scraggly pony and in front of the smaller soldier he placed a mighty war horse. Then he gave both soldiers the task of pulling out their horse’s tail but by two very different methods. The stout soldier was instructed to pull off the tail in one clump and the small soldier was told to do so, one hair at a time. You can guess the outcome. It was the weaker soldier who triumphed over the war horse and the mighty soldier who failed despite all his apparent advantages over the pony; because a horse tail’s strength is found in its many strands.
A wise leader will succeed by collecting, learning from and applying many seemingly small principals for his life’s success. They will be like the multitude of strands in the horse’s tail which make it impervious to being overpowered by the brute force of a single setback.
A foolish person often looks merely to an individual gift, personal strength or single insight for his success. This is a weak approach because there is no unity of purpose or back-up supporting his effort. It lacks insight to let our dreams sink or swim on such a fragile matrix.
Leadership finds its strength through many combined bits of knowledge and wisdom gleaned from our experiences, just as the many hairs of the horse’s tail make it strong.
"Build the probability of your success by marshaling the many resources and knowledge gathered over your lifetime."
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