NEHEMIAH 7-13: MISCELLANEOUS MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES

 

The last half of the book is concerned with a number of topics, some not really involving Nehemiah at all. But he still appears several key times throughout these chapters to make his presence known.

7:1-4 After the wall repairs had been completed, it was time for Nehemiah to step back a bit and leave his brother and Hanaiah in charge of the city. There always comes a time in a manager's career where he or she has to learn to delegate. And those micromanagers who cannot learn to do this will seldom rise any further in the organization since it can be argued that they are indispensable at their present job. I had one boss who was not exactly a micromanager, but he viewed everyone who reported to him as a threat. Even after he retired, he tried to poison the minds of the top executives in the company against his direct reports. He spread the word that none of us was capable of handling any higher positions. We subsequently proved him wrong.

Another principle to be learned from these verses is that if you are going to delegate, make sure that you trust the people you have given the added responsibilities and then step back and let them handle it without looking over their shoulders. Nehemiah could probably trust his own brother to do the best job he could, and it expressly states in 7:2 that Hanaiah “was a faithful man and feared God more than most others.” On the other hand, disaster can occur if you delegate to the wrong person. I saw this happen in graduate school when my research professor went on sabbatical and left a totally untrustworthy person in charge of his group. That person took full advantage of the situation to further his own career by stealing credit for the research of the graduate students while giving false reports to our boss concerning our behavior.

7:5-73 Next Nehemiah looks around and sees that there are actually very few people living in Jerusalem itself, and so he decides to conduct a detailed census of the people in Judea. When one is placed in charge of a new group, the first thing to do is assess the physical resources of the group and the capability of the personnel to accomplish their jobs. Nehemiah not only counts the people, but he also notes those who were the first to return from exile. Those people were likely to be the ones most committed to rebuilding the community.

Finally, Nehemiah looks into the background of some of those wishing to reclaim their ancestral territory and finds that they really have no right to the land they are claiming. Another problem area that he uncovers is that some of the priests really should not have been serving as such at all.

Chapters 8-10 concern the coming of Ezra to read the Books of the Law to the people and remind them of God's will for their lives. Nehemiah supports Ezra's efforts, and the people repent of their past sins and vow to resume offerings to God. In a small way this reminds me again of the quality improvement initiative our company began years ago. Most of the people took it to heart when they realized that top management was behind the initiative.

In Nehemiah 11-12, we see how well organized the people become, each with his or her specific role to play in running the city and conducting worship. I have seen one horrible example of leadership happen when new management came in and began making arbitrary reassignments of personnel and rearrangement of whole group that had been functioning quite well beforehand. It also takes a thorough understanding of why personnel are divided according to specific duties or else individuals and groups will start to compete against one another instead to cooperating.

Nehemiah 13 presents us with a drastic change in tone. In the first place, Nehemiah has had to absent himself from Judea for some time in order to serve the king again. But as soon as he can, he asks for another leave of absence to revisit Jerusalem and scope out their progress in his absence. It has been said by some wise business guru that management is what happens when you are not there. In other words, if you have set up a proper organization and assigned trustworthy personnel to man it, there is no need to micomanage the situation all the time.

Unfortunately, in Nehemiah's absence several things had been happening in Jerusalem that needed immediate correction. For one thing, one of Tobiah's relatives who was a priest set up private quarters for Tobiah located right in the temple. You will remember him as one of Nehemiah's thorns in the side. Nehemiah angrily throws all of Tobiah's belongings out of the temple. Reading that account reminded me immediately of one of my first years as a working chemist. I got so mad at my group leader over one of his arbitrary decisions that I picked up his office chair and threw it to the other side of the room. The problems with my behavior were (1) he was my boss, not vice verse and (2) I thought that I was being righteously indignant just as Nehemiah was. In fact, I was not righteous at all in my actions or motives. I can still vividly remember several other occasions in which I acted in an angry manner when at least half the time I was the party in the wrong.

Secondly, the provisions allotted for the Levites and temple singers had somehow been diverted elsewhere. He remonstrates with the officials for allowing this to happen, and the situation is corrected. Next, Nehemiah finds out that the people in Jerusalem have been totally ignoring the sabbath regulations by working and trading on that day. He locks the gates to the city the night before the sabbath so that merchants can't bring goods in and out. In addition, he bawls out the Jewish nobles for letting the situation to develop in the first place.

Lastly, he finds out that some of the Jews have married foreign women in direct violation of God's commandment. Here he really becomes angry, beating some of the men and pulling their hair. And then he compounds his behavior by chasing away the son-in-law of another old enemy, Sanballat. There is a classic Christian book titled In His Steps in which the author proposes Jesus as the role model for how we are to live our lives. There are two major problems with this thesis. In the first place, Jesus always acted out of a complete understanding of all the facts involved. By contrast, we never know the whole story, including what led up to any given situation and what was likely to ensue afterward. Secondly, Jesus' motives were always pure whereas we are always acting out of mixed motives at best and selfish motives at worst. 

I think we can cut Nehemiah some slack in his actions and neither judge him for his violent response to conditions nor put him on a pedestal. In either case, I would certainly not advise employees or managers to become as agitated as either Nehemiah or myself became since it rarely accomplishes anything positive. Most of you will probably think immediately of Jesus' actions in getting a whip and chasing the money-changers out of the temple. Jesus has been criticized for his behavior as being out of character. Of course, both Nehemiah and Jesus had every right to do what they did because they were not acting out of selfish motives, but in defense of God and His word.