NEHEMIAH 1-2: DEALING WITH BOSSES

Although the Book of Nehemiah is in the Bible primarily for the spiritual lessons it has to offer, there is actually a lot of practical guidance in it for those in just about any work situation. And I believe that several books have been written on business principles exemplified by Nehemiah. Since I have occupied a number of different rungs on the corporate ladder over the years, I thought I would try to see if there were any commonalities between the way Nehemiah responded to his changing surroundings and my personal experiences in the work arena.

Chapter 1 introduces us to Nehemiah as he hears news from Judea concerning the dire straits the people are in and the poor condition of the walls surrounding Jerusalem. We see how passionately concerned he is that something be done about the situation. And I would venture to guess that Nehemiah up to that time had been almost equally passionate about fulfilling whatever duties were set before him. This points out that whatever task we are given to do, no matter important or trivial, we must approach it seriously and with all our energy and abilities. George Washington Carver was an excellent example of this principle. Even as a janitor, he tried to do the very best job he could, and because of his strong work ethic, he eventually ended up as a famous agricultural scientist.

In the second chapter, we learn that Nehemiah reports directly to the king of the whole Persian Empire – the equivalent of the CEO of a very large corporation. Not only that, but Nehemiah is also his cup-bearer, one of the most responsible positions that anyone could hold in ancient society since it was not unheard of for kings to be assassinated by putting poison in their wine. This brings up the question as to how a Jew such as Nehemiah could rise to such a position in the Persian court. Besides Nehemiah's personal qualifications, another possibility is that the Persians recognized the Jews in general for their high moral standards. If so, it could be equivalent to the situation of the hyper-paranoid Howard Hughes who surrounded himself with only Mormon associates to handle his financial matters. It wasn't that he subscribed to their theology, but because of their reputation for honesty.

In a small way I can relate to this. Years ago, a dispute arose between one of my fellow chemists and myself which was a case of his word against mine. The issue was important enough that it got sent to a manger two levels above me. He sided with me on the issue and explained that it was because he knew I was a religious person and so he trusted my word.

Another important principle here is that Nehemiah supported his boss with his very life. Helping your immediate supervisor to look good is not only the right thing to do, but also a practical guide to getting ahead in an organization (assuming that you are interested in doing that). I learned this while at a summer job during college working as a lowly file clerk in a large corporation. Apparently I delivered the mail promptly enough to the sales staff that when one of them got a better job at another company, he approached me and offered to put in a good word for me at his new job. I thanked him, but told him that I needed to finish my schooling first. I still don't know what I must have done right to prompt him to make that offer. But twice at my first full-time job, I was chosen to replace my immediate supervisor when he was promoted to a higher position in the company. This gives the lie to those “smarter” people who feel that the quickest way to success is to stab your boss in the back (more about that in a subsequent post).

As we read further in chapter two, we are given a description of an important encounter between Nehemiah and King Artaxerxes. We can learn a lot by looking at how these two people interacted. Nehemiah still has a distressed look on his face when he serves the king, and the king notices it immediately and asks him the the matter can be. Note how the king pays enough attention to his servant to notice the difference in his demeanor. That demonstrates that he was good at reading his employees. He not only notices a potential problem but also prompts Nehemiah to explain the matter to him. Most CEO's would hardly glance at an underling serving coffee at a meeting, for example, much less notice that there was anything bothering him, or ask him what the problem was. I have been on the receiving side of such a dismissive attitude before, and it is all too typical in large corporations especially.

To counteract that attitude if you happen to have people reporting to you, one useful technique that I followed as a manager was what has been called managing-by-walking-around. The principle behind this technique is that people are likely to have gripes that they are afraid to bring to their manager because they seem too minor to warrant making an official appointment or even walking into his/her office. But they are much more likely to open up if you casually visit each employee on a fairly regular basis at their office or cubicle and ask how things are going. I was amazed at how much I found out that way. How different that was from the first location I worked at where we didn't even see our boss three levels up until Christmas time came around and he made his requisite “Merry Christmas” greeting to each of us and shook our hands. One employee was walking from one lab to the other for some business and got his hand shook three times without the executive even noticing it.

Well, let's turn from Artaxerxes, the model boss, to Nehemiah the model employee. Whether or not Nehemiah planned in advance to approach the king with his story and request, it was obvious by the fact that the king asked him a question point blank that this was the ideal time to to do it. Knowing when to approach your boss can be quite an art. At one point in my career I was filling in for a missing supervisor and thus placed in a position where I had no one on the corporate ladder between the laboratory head and myself. It was always a nerve-racking situation to be in, made much worse by the fact that he was rather erratic in his behavior, to say the least. Some of the managers who were used to dealing with him had gotten to the point where they would only enter his office with a request if his secretary, who could read him like a book, tipped them off in advance what kind of mood he was in that day or that hour. Sometimes they would wait for weeks until they could catch him at a favorable time.

So I can empathize with poor Nehemiah who says, “And then I was really afraid.” before launching into his sad story with fear and trembling. After all, just consider the Book of Esther which also concerns a Jew in Persia who finds herself in a position of influence with the king, all the while subject to dire consequences if she approaches him with a request without being first summoned. But Nehemiah is obviously just as good at reading Artaxerxes as our secretary was at reading her boss, and so he describes the horrible situation in Judea and makes it clear how concerned he is.

Several times I have been in the unenviable position of making a one-on-one presentation to the head of the company. In one case, our president was a bully who loved to look for weaknesses in others and try to humiliate them in public. He had done it to one of my chemists, and I didn't appreciate it at all. So when I was about half way through my speech to him, I noticed something very odd about his behavior. He was staring at me intensely without blinking. I laughed to myself because I realized that he was trying to intimidate me in that childish manner. So I took a long glance at my notes and, with a pleasant smile on my face, began to do the same thing to him. When he looked away rather embarrassedly, I knew that I had either made my point or lost my job at that point. Fortunately, I had read him correctly as a bully who is a coward at heart.

But incorrect reading of a superior can have disastrous consequences, as much later one of our vice presidents found out when he was presenting his yearly budget to the owner of our company. He felt so confident of himself that he answered a question posed by the owner in a very flippant manner and was fired the next day.

Getting back to our story, the king replies, “What do you want?” This is another tricky moment, as I well know, and I can see why Nehemiah utters a short prayer to God before giving his answer. The problem at this point for anyone in the same situation as Nehemiah is that he can easily get into trouble if he asks for too much or too little. I have learned this lesson the hard way, especially in the yearly employee evaluation meetings between all the managers overseen by the laboratory head. Each of us, of course, wanted to give all of our own employees the best ratings and raises. But if one of us was too obvious about it, the head of the labs would sense it and ignore even the more deserving candidates. On the other hand, if we just caved in to the other managers' desires, our own employees soon found out that they were always behind those in the other sections. This could easily destroy morale in our group and lead to mass requests to be transferred to another section.

The exact same thing happened each year when it was time to formulate a budget for the following year. Each of us tried to get the most money funneled into our groups for new manpower and equipment. One year, one of my direct reports turned in his budget to me which included having a whole building turned over to his group and taken away from the one that presently occupied it. He actually had valid reasons to justify this request, but I tried, unsuccessfully, to explain to him what would happen if I presented his proposal in a meeting with other departments. It would have destroyed both his credibility and mine with the rest of the laboratory.

With that sort of background experience, I can certainly understand why all Nehemiah asks for is a short leave of absence to go to Jerusalem to scope out the situation personally. By the way, this illustrates another valuable piece of advice: before going off in a rampage to try to correct a situation you have heard about second hand, check out the facts for yourself.

At that point (v. 7), Nehemiah is encouraged by the favorable response from the king enough to make another request for letters of safe passage and materials to help rebuild the gates of Jerusalem. I have actually done the same thing on occasion in making one request after another until my boss actually said, “That's enough, Dave.” You have to learn how far to push your luck. Finally note that in v. 8, Nehemiah thanks God for what had just happened. Of course, Nehemiah was on the side of the angels in this issue and so it is no surprise that God made sure it happened. As a manager or employee, however, it is not nearly as easy to discern whether your own wishes are truly in line with God's will.

Nehemiah 2:9-10 introduce two new characters into the story, but we will save discussion of them until another post.