NEHEMIAH 2:11-4:5 DEALING WITH EMPLOYEES

 

Nehemiah 2:11-16 After procuring permission from the king and picking up some needed supplies, Nehemiah heads to Judea. But surprisingly, he doesn't charge right into Jerusalem and begin giving orders on what to do. Instead, he scopes out the situation for himself before acting. Our company was once bought out by an entrepreneur who had never owned a chemical firm like ours before. We later found out that one of his first planned actions was to shut down the research wing entirely. But fortunately he took the better part of a day to first look at our facility himself. It soon became obvious that we were not at all what he had expected, and so he delayed for enough time to realize our true worth to the company.

Nehemiah 2:17-19 When Nehemiah's fact-finding mission is complete, he next assembles the leaders in Jerusalem and casts a grand vision to rebuild the walls and gates of the city. His speech to them is quite short, at least what is recorded for us here. But sometimes all that is needed from a leader is to point out an existing problem and express strongly your interest in getting it solved. And after their enthusiastic reply, the text tells us, “So they committed themselves to the common good.” This is an important point because unless those who report to you are shown that they themselves will benefit by a change, they will only be committing to action under duress. One of the former presidents of our company liked to give recorded pep talks shown at all our locations. He did just like Nehemiah in that he pointed out the challenges we were facing, but stopped short of showing anyone how they might personally benefit by working harder or smarter.

I was once charged with the task of increasing the number of inventions generated in our labs. I first did my homework by attending a number of seminars by creativity experts, began posting mind puzzles in our monthly newsletter, showed movies at lunch to the chemists and engineers on the theme followed by discussion sessions, and eventually devised a number of workshops on the principles of creativity to the technical staff. But I never attempted to outline how any of them were to incorporate those principles in their individual jobs. As a result, the number of creative ideas we came up with increased dramatically. And I believe that part of that success was because the rest of the technical staff saw how passionately interested in the subject I was.

Chapter 3 is a roster of the various families and groups that took part in the repair of the wall and gates of the city. In a way, it is like the annual recognition banquet I instituted for those who had submitted patent suggestions or applications that year, and gave out plaques for those meeting patent milestones. It is amazing how a little thing like recognition of your efforts in front of your peers can motivate employees to do their best. Notice several things regarding this chapter. In the first place, although everyone is working toward the common goal, in a great number of the cases listed, the workers repaired portions of their wall the closest to their living abodes. I would also like to think that Nehemiah encouraged some good-natured, healthy competition between the groups to see who could finish their section the soonest. I know that I did that in some of my creativity workshops by giving out token prizes to individuals or groups that demonstrated the most creativity in solving problems that I gave them to solve.

There is only one cautionary note sounded in the middle of all the activity taking place, and that is found in v. 5 which states regarding the Tekoites that “their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work of their Lord.” This refusal of a few to demean themselves with manual labor is in stark contrast to the Levites, rulers, goldsmiths, etc. who were willing to join in even if they may not have been used to doing such hard work before. I even have several examples in my work experience that resonate with this story.

I once worked in the research division of a major oil company. Although our location was not a union shop, every few years when it was time for labor contracts at the refineries to be renewed, our technical staff would be on notice to be sent to the refineries and help keep them going during a strike. It was not required duty for any of us, but most people jumped at the chance because you could almost double your salary for the duration of the strike if you didn't mind the long hours. A chemist in our department volunteered one year but came back almost immediately. It seems as if they didn't have any immediate assignments for him to do and so he was asked to paint the lavatories. He promptly came back home and explained to us that it was beneath him to do such menial work. He didn't get any sympathy from the rest of us who would have been glad to clean the toilets for the money involved.

A more serious example of the illustration in v. 5 occurred at another location I worked at. Back when the quality improvement principles of business gurus such as Tom Peters were beginning to be taken seriously in American industry, it eventually reached our company. Some quality consultants were hired, and they first talked to our top executives in our corporate headquarters. It was quite an eye opener for them when they were confronted for the first time with their own deficits in management style, but they emerged from a literal all-night session with these experts as true believers in the process. I have to give them a lot of credit for humbling themselves and enthusiastically pitching in just as the various priests, nobles and officials in Jerusalem did in Nehemiah's time. However, there are always holdouts. In our case, unfortunately it was the head of our laboratories. He made it clear to all of us after the consultants had come and gone that quality improvement was for the rest of us, but he was exempt. Obviously, he either thought he was already doing a perfect job (which he certainly wasn't) or he was afraid of what an examination of his deficits would reveal. We tried to get the job done without him, but it certainly would have been much easier if he had set us a better example.