Within an old and autonomous team, communication problems arise between the team and the successive managers. The last manager has the will to solve the problem but no longer has authority over the group which, faced with the difficulties, prefers to hide the facts from him.
If the situation persists, the team leader risks leaving his post.
In conflict situations, we often see a team continue to function under the impetus of a successful but burnt-out team leader. This type of situation is called pyrrhic victories.
Back to the story:
A Pyrrhic victory is a victory at devastating cost to the victor.
The phrase is an allusion to King Pyrrhus I of Epirus whose army suffered irreplaceable losses when he defeated the Romans during his war in Italy at the Battle of Heraclea .
Pyrrhus was indeed a superb Persian fighter who, with his army, won all the battles against the Romans.
After the battle of Heraclea the armies separated and Pyrrhus is said to have replied to someone celebrating his victory that 'one more victory like that and he would be utterly defeated'.
He had lost much of the forces he had brought up and almost all of his friends and leading commanders; and, far from his country, he had no means of getting new recruits. While the Roman camp was quickly and abundantly filled with fresh men, not at all crushed by defeat but drawing from their anger new strength and resolve to continue the war.
With each victory of Pyrrhus, the Romans lost more men than him but they could easily recruit; their losses therefore affected their war effort far less than that of Pyrrhus.
The quote: "If we have to win another victory over the Romans, we are lost", although associated with a military context, applies by analogy to other fields of activity including that of conflict situations in the professional environment. .
