In Chapter 1 and 2 of the book we read the story and the response of Nehemiah to the situation in Jerusalem. When he heard the news about the state of Jerusalem and those who survived the exile he was moved with great sadness of heart to do something about it. “Sadness of heart” means his whole soul was overcome with grief and a desire to do something to redeem Jerusalem. It was not pity or mere sympathy but an absolute commitment.
He prayed and focused without doing anything. This was the same advice Ray Bakke gave a group of us years ago when we were anxious to do something in Tyler. We wanted to rush off and get started right away. Ray said, “Don’t do anything for at least six months but listen. If you do something quickly it will be the wrong thing. As difficult as it is, wait.”
Nehemiah evaluated his capacity realistically. He had access to power and social capital.
He waited four months to do anything at all.
He was totally committed – not just interested.
He organized and prepared. In fact, it is five years between the time he talks with the king to the time he actually leaves to go to Jerusalem. He prepared five years for a project that took 52 days.
If there is any one piece of advice I could give to people starting anything it is this. How much time have you spent preparing?
He had a plan based on vested interests and private resources. The king wanted a stable region and had the ability to totally fund the work.
Nehemiah did not lead the people out from Babylon. He was not Moses. There was no spectacular departure from exile. No plagues, no chase by Pharaoh, no parting of the waters or pillar of fire for millions of people.
People had essentially drifted back to Jerusalem over the course of years. It was an abandoned site for the most part that was boarded up and broken down. What Nehemiah walked into was a dispirited, discouraged, disorganized and directionless collection of people who not been successful in the 75 years they had been there. Some of the people had returned after exile and others had been there all along as they had not been taken. Remember, the Babylonians tended to take only the “best and the brightest” into captivity and leaving the rest to survive. So, Nehemiah walked into a society that was deeply divided into classes.
There was an elite but they provided no leadership. In fact, they refused to work. They were easily intimidated by the prospect of losing their position and were actually in collusion with the enemy. The city was economically depressed with a few bad guys in charge. Think about a Clint Eastwood movie.
It is a classic turnaround situation and turnarounds require a particular style of leadership.
Often Nehemiah is presented as the Biblical model of leadership – especially for pastors – but I think that is not helpful. There are so many styles of leadership in Scripture and each one of them is different. Some are as methodical as Nehemiah while others are spontaneous and charismatic. Some are reluctant – like Gideon and Moses – and have to be almost forced to lead. Others are naturals – like David. Nehemiah was just right for this particular situation. He might not have been a fit for another challenge.
What are the principles of a turnaround? A great article is titled “Turnaround at Waste Management: The Secrets of Their Success”
1. Get out of the office. “The last place you are going to learn about the business is at the corporate office.” Nehemiah walked every inch of the wall and inspected the gates.
2. Embody the change. Look at 5:14-18.
“Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year—twelve years—neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor. But the earlier governors—those preceding me—placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that. Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall. All my men were assembled there for the work; we did not acquire any land.
Furthermore, a hundred and fifty Jews and officials ate at my table, as well as those who came to us from the surrounding nations. Each day one ox, six choice sheep and some poultry were prepared for me, and every ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people.”
But what else would he have gained by having dinner with labor and management at his table every day? First hand information about how things were going as well as building trust. There is something about eating together over time that draws people together – even adversaries.
3. Stop the bleeding. “System stabilization is important to enable the organization to operate effectively while plans are put in place for the future systems, without it, we would have found ourselves continuously fighting fires and not addressing the long-term system needs of the business.”
Nehemiah created systems. He stationed men at all the gaps in the wall and rotated them on a regular basis.
Instead of people living scattered all over the countryside, he brought them inside the walls.
He organized the work around their natural self-interest. Everyone was assigned a part of the wall that was nearest to them and their homes. They were organized that way not only to rebuild but to protect as well. “Fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” They had a vested interest in re-building and protecting and they were not responsible for the whole city.
4. Identify the biggest problem. “Identify your biggest problem and fix it pronto. When Myers and Smith began to make changes at Waste Management, “it was anything but by the book,” Smith says. Forget about building a business case, determining ROI or even getting a blessing from the board in order to fix an urgent problem. In a turnaround situation, certain things must be done yesterday.”
Max DePree in Leadership Is An Art says, “The first responsibility of leadership is to define reality.” How did Nehemiah do that? He walked the wall. He knew the people. He thoroughly analyzed the situation.
What was Nehemiah’s biggest problem? For him, it was the constant intimidation of the leadership. The people had skills but they afraid of the slightest resistance. They had no examples of strong leadership.
Chapter 6:9-13
“They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.”
But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”
One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you.”
But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!” I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.”
5. Focus on common goals. Look at 5:16
“I devoted myself to the work on this wall. All my men were assembled there for the work; we did not acquire any land.”
The leadership was completely focused on the work and not on the benefits. Executives did not have a piece of the success that gave them special treatment. Everyone was there to work on those few things that mattered. Nehemiah was not an altruist. Three times he asks God to, remember what he has done. He looks for a reward but he is not an opportunist looking to benefit from the misfortunes of others or interested in using his position.
6. Communicate.
Rosabeth Moss Kantor in her book “The Change Masters” talks about this as much as anything else. “Too often, change leaders make the mistake of believing that others understand the issues, feel the need to change, and see the new direction as clearly as they do. The best change programs reinforce core messages through regular, timely advice that is both inspirational and practicable. Communications flow in from the bottom and out from the top, and are targeted to provide employees the right information at the right time and to solicit their input and feedback. Often this will require over-communication through multiple, redundant channels.”
The biggest obstacle in any change is fear and the biggest source of fear is lack of accurate information. You cannot over communicate during times of change. Everyone needs to know as much as possible and that role needs to be as close to leadership as possible. People will fill in gaps in communication with rumors, speculation and assumptions. There is no such thing as no information – only good and bad communication.
4:18 “But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me. The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. Whenever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there.”
7. Celebrate success with a ceremony and dedication.
8:9-12 “Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and teacher of the Law, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.
Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
The Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, for this is a holy day. Do not grieve.”
Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.”
They make a commitment to the new code of behavior.
9:38 “In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing, and our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it.”
But fixing the wall did not fix the economic situation within the walls. There was an unsustainable gap between the rich and the poor. He had to rebuild the moral sense of the people and, again, he led by example. He did not use his privilege as others had done. Unlike the nobles, he worked and did not benefit from his position.
Nehemiah 5:1-12
“Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews. 2 Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.” 3 Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.” 4 Still others were saying, “We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards. 5 Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our fellow Jews and though our children are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.” 6 When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry. 7 I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, “You are charging your own people interest!” So I called together a large meeting to deal with them 8 and said: “As far as possible, we have bought back our fellow Jews who were sold to the Gentiles. Now you are selling your own people, only for them to be sold back to us!” They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say. 9 So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? 10 I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let us stop charging interest! 11 Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the interest you are charging them—one percent of the money, grain, new wine and olive oil.” 12 “We will give it back,” they said. “And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.”
He didn’t ask them to give from their wealth to the poor. He didn’t ask for charity or philanthropy. He didn’t ask for the redistribution of wealth. Instead, he told them to stop making people poor by taking away their means of creating wealth for themselves. He was not proposing government subsidy or welfare. He wanted to restore ownership. Ownership trumps philanthropy every time. Ownership is the source of so many other virtues in a community.
Arthur Brooks wrote a book titled, Who Really Cares and analyzed the giving of all levels of income in America. Here is what he discovered about the giving of the poor.
“Whether or not people give charitably has everything to do with entitlement mentality. In a fascinating comparison, Brooks looks at the giving patterns of the poorest Americans, who are at one extreme or the other, “America the Charitable” and “America the Selfish” writ large. People with the least income to spare either give the highest proportion of their income away—four to five percent—or they give almost nothing. What’s the difference in these two groups? The X factor is whether they receive entitlement payments from the government. The working poor give away three times as much of their money as people on welfare, even though they have exactly the same income. Apparently receiving entitlement payments cripples the impulse to aid others. Brooks concludes “poverty doesn’t make people uncharitable—it’s the government policies for ending it.”
I read a great article this week on the value of local small business ownership published by The Business Alliance of Local Living Economies.
Higher Multipliers – Because of their community relationships, local businesses spend more of their money locally, which pumps up the local economic multiplier—the foundation for local income, wealth, and jobs. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has shown the relatively high rate at which money leaks out of absentee-owned fast-food restaurants. Two thirds of McDonald’s revenue leaks out of a community.
More Reliable – Locally owned businesses rarely move, and their proprietors are not inclined to move to Mexico or Malaysia to get a higher rate of return from their business. This means that they are much more reliable generators of wealth, income, and jobs.
More Entrepreneurship – Chris Gibbons, founder of the economic gardening movement, argues that local businesses focusing on innovation is one of the most dynamic catalysts for local prosperity.
Less Vulnerability – Because locally owned businesses tend to buy locally, they foster self-reliance in a community and help inoculate the economy against global surprises totally outside local control.
Greater Social Well Being – Communities dominated by local small business tend to have better social performance.
Greater Creativity – Richard Florida’s arguments about the importance of a “creative class” for economic success also tend to support locally owned businesses
But he had to convince those who had stolen the wealth to give back the fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses. How did he do that?
“What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let the exacting of usury stop!”
He shamed them into changing. He held them up to public ridicule and made what they were doing visible to everyone. It doesn’t sound like much of a strategy but it is.
Kwame Appiah wrote a book published several years ago titled The Honor Code that traced the effect of shame in moral revolutions – dueling, the slave trade and foot-binding.
“Whatever happened when these immoral practices ceased, it wasn’t, so it seemed to me, that people were bowled over by new moral arguments,” he writes. “Dueling was always murderous and irrational; foot binding was always painfully crippling; slavery was always an assault on the humanity of the slave.” What was needed in each of those cases, he suggests, was the awakening of a nation’s sense of honor, an awakening that caused people actually to act. Mr. Appiah writes well about how shame and ridicule, often delivered through a free press, have consistently been sharp moral motivators.
He notes that dueling and foot binding were elite practices. When they began to spread to the lower classes they quickly lost their cachet. Honor is more important than money as a moral motivator, he points out. We don’t give our brave soldiers money. We give them medals.
John Adams put it this way, “The desire of the esteem of others is as real a want of nature as hunger; and the neglect and contempt of the world as severe a pain as the gout or stone.”
That is exactly what Nehemiah did with the nobles. He made them feel ashamed and disgraced unless they changed their behavior. And they did.
Chapter 6:15-16 “So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth day of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this and all the surrounding nations saw it, our enemies lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.”
Quite a feat for fifty-two days, isn’t it?
In the end it was far more than the rebuilding of a wall.
Their confidence was restored.
Their future was assured.
Their economy was rebuilt.
Their leadership’s honor was reestablished.
Their enemies were demoralized and neutralized.
They recommitted themselves to values and rules.
God was honored.
The power of a great enterprise – even a short one – is always the same.