Heroes are human

When it gets to Kings, the story of the Israelites is the story of a whole nation, or a major corporation and we can see all the politics of multi nation companies at work. Nevertheless, let’s look at David. David is a hero king yet he is humble; his real concern is for the wellbeing of the nation. The nation is bigger than David, not the other way round as some politicians come to imagine. Yet the story tells of David lusting after another man’s wife, not only lusting but engineering the man’s death so that he can have her for himself. If this is true, why not just ignore it and keep the hero king’s moral reputation clean? Because it shows David as a human being. We have so many heroes from history who have no faults or defects, Arthur, Robert Bruce, yet David is not one of them. This is one of the non- religious lessons the Bible teaches – honour people for what they do, but remember they are humans and have human motivations: Robert Burns poetry is a gift to the world and should not be tainted with his human failings; Turner’s landscapes are magnificent and his treatment of women should not detract from that. The wonder of it is that humans could create such things and that should be a motivation for each of us to try.

Saul's statue

As predicted, in the end Saul took advantage of the people. He was king for forty years and, not surprisingly started to think he was something special, even having monuments erected to himself. He'd become so set in his ways he became a danger to the community and unable to use Jonathan and his new tactics. It’s the same in many spheres of human activity, business, management, clubs and teams; leave someone in the same position and they feel they are indispensable or that no one can, or will, take their place. It assumes that if they drop dead the activity will collapse. It also means they start to enforce their opinions on the organisation and, often, in business hang on to outdated ideas and systems because they introduced them or they are comfortable with them. Several organisations insist on moving senior people every three years. What can one achieve in three years? Motivation and reinforcing goals and culture. But not long enough to change and upset the entire organisation nor long enough to become a statue. For the team, the new person has no preconceived ideas about products, tools or tactics. No one has a chance to set up an ivory tower or an empire and the organisation stays lean and mean. In a club, without intent, things get swept under the carpet if one of the officers is too long in one post. One misconception is that a club will die if the chairman or secretary gives up. If the remaining members are not motivated enough to keep it going, why does it exist anyway? The nation didn’t exist because Saul was there, Saul was there because the nation existed.

Ruth

The story of Ruth comes between the desperate intercine warfare among the Israelites in Judges and the serious business of Kings but it's not just a bit of light relief. When reading the Bible stories, it is best not to rush but to let the story talk to you. First, is the old maxim that a kindness done without expectation of reward will come back in some way or other. BUt then there is Naomi's advice and Ruth's behavior to think over. The relationship grew, not because Ruth pushed it but because she let Boaz decide to pursue it. All Ruth did was to give him the opportunity. Any relationship, personal, working, or business will only succeed if both partners want it to. Pressurising another party into a relationship is a recipe for disaster. This is not the same as reaching consensus, which may involve sacrifice; the sacrifices must not create animosity, os course, or the relationship will implode. hard lessons from a love story!

The 'normal' trap

After Samson the last chapters of the book off Judges mentions that there was no king in Israel and everyone did as they pleased. That situation has been repeated often in the succeeding centuries. Many revolutions have degenerated into petty quarrels among the ‘victors’. The crux being that there is no longer any central authority, or even objective and squabbling becomes the 'normal' relationship. The Israelites had been absorbed with claiming the land they had been promised but when that was done, they lost direction. There are many lessons in the story, personal, relationship wise and for business.

In personal life, it highlights the need for a long term goal, many fail college and university because their goal has been achieved. The idea that they are at college or whatever to learn how to be a doctor, for example, is dampened by the realisation of their short term goal; those who succeed see it only as a stepping stone.

Relationships break down for similar reasons. Great sex, intellectual compatibility, even being a good doubles partner at tennis or golf become ‘normal’ and descend into boredom after a while and it is those who want to share their life experience that make real partners.

In the business sphere, without firm direction the sales manager argues with the production manager, who argues with IR, who argues with PR and energy that should be directed to success is dissipated in internal wrangling.

What is needed is a plan for what happens next; the understanding that the realisation of one goal will open the door to another challenge. Someone who wants to be a foreman for being a foreman rather than to learn how to be a manager, for example, will become bored and useless, unless their life objective lies elsewhere. There is no point in getting into a relationship where the sex is great but the partner is thick as a brick, that’s obvious, but so is a partner who doesn’t share long term goals. Before a business has maximised it's market it must have plans to change direction or be sold.

It is distressing to see how many ignore the lessons of Judges for no better reason than that they are in the Bible. They are not only for the religious but contain the wisdom handed down from antiquity.

One of the people our Sunday School teacher made a hero of, was Samson. Of course, it was war time and there were Nazies to hate but, since then, there have been a number of terrorists/freedom fighter organisations who have made me re-examine the Samson story and the lessons it teaches. When Samson arrived, the Israelites were dominated by the Philistines. Samson grew up, killed thousands with the jaw bone of an ass, married someone from their culture, was betrayed, blinded and took his revenge by pulling down their place of entertainment, thereby killing, not only himself, but more than he had when he was alive. After all that, the Israelites were still dominated by the Philistines. So, apart from the death of many Philistines, what had Samson achieved? It doesn't seem to have been a great deal, so what lessons does the story teach?
Firstly, as has been proved over and over since 1945, killing people solves very little. 
However, these notes are meant to deal with personal and relationship problems and it is necessary to look more closely at the incidents in the story. Samson was betrayed by his wife, a wife he had taken from outside his culture. That's not the same as race or social class, it's the philosophy we live by, how we see our social responsibilities. For a relationship, social, work, or business to work, partners' cultures have to overlap. For some reason, it is better if they have areas of difference that have to be worked on, but the overlap must be considerable or one partner will betray the other.

Then there is the question of revenge. Samson’s efforts may have altered the demographics but each tit following a tat only escalated the confrontation and solved nothing of the general problem of Philistine domination or equality between them and the Israelites. The same applies in relationships. Paying back some slight only encourages another. It’s not good to allow oneself to be trampled on but, ideally, one should leave the other party an honourable way out of a dispute.

Looking forward

When Jephthah led Israel several of the neighbouring rulers claimed back land that the Israelites had captured three hundred years earlier and went to war to reclaim it. After some negotiation, the two went to war and the Israelites won. This sounds like a good historical tale but if we look at it in the way Ancient stories, like Aesop's fables are told there is a good deal more to be learned from the story. The lessons are usually from the losing side, so what does that tell us? The bordering kings had held a grudge for three hundred years and when they wanted it redressed, it reacted badly on them. They would have been better to accept the status quo and get on with life. That lesson applies to most human interaction, individuals, groups and even businesses. Remembering must be for the right reasons. We do not remember Auschwitz for what it did to the Jews, we remember it because all who were involved in it were human beings and it reminds us of the kind of things human beings can do to each other. Using up energy and resources to get back at a rival reduces the energy we have to improve ourselves. If we start from how things were a year ago, we will never progress tomorrow.  There is merit in analysing to prevent future mistakes but analysing the past to apportion blame only keeps opening the wound. There is merit in recalling success to motivate further improvement or mitigate gloom at some reverse, we can be that nation again as the Scots sing, but the starting point of tomorrow is today.

Loyalty and commitment

In his last days, Joshua called the people together and like a CEO after a merger, warned them about the dangers of clinging to old and contrary cultures - they will become snares and traps for you, he warned. He also insists they choose where their loyalty lay.  These warnings don't just apply to big corporations, however, they apply to sports teams, small groups and even individuals. This is not to say that the door should be closed on new ideas but that we all have a culture, company and personal, that makes us who we are. Trying to imitate someone else only damages our own identity. No business can succeed if it is continually changing its focus, it needs to concentrate on its core business and, most importantly, core values. No team can win if its members are not all focused on the team game plan with half operating to one strategy and the others employing tactics used by a different team. No individual can succeed by trying to be an imitation of someone else instead of making use of their own strengths. What about loyalty? Most problems in business and work come from divided loyalties. The business only exists as long as it makes a profit, if that is not possible within the company culture of customer policy, wage rates, employee conditions, then the company must close. Changing the culture to produce an inferior article makes it a new company and each individual will, and must, decide if they can transfer their loyalty. A star performer in a poor team moving to a better one, must decide if they can accept not being the hero. The person who can't stand the boss has to decide if their loyalty is to their dependants, the job, or the boss before giving up. Loyalty is not a given, of course, and managers and big companies are apt to forget that loyalty must be earned, in the same way, as Joshua points out, that God earned that of the Israelites. 

Why review?

By the time Joshua was old and full of years, the Israelites had become a large organisation and their struggles reflect the problems faced by that kind of association and we get a list of what has been allocated to whom. Translating that into present day terms it tells us a large organisation, business, sporting, or just community, needs to review and remind itself of what it has accomplished and what its values are.  It applies to teams and even couples and individuals. We need to remind ourselves of the successes we’ve had and the problems we’ve faced and overcome together. We need to remind ourselves why we are doing things and what our ultimate aims are. It applies to careers, university studies and even school, where it is easy to give up over the boring aspects of what we are busy with, when they are necessary steps to a goal. It’s also necessary to remind ourselves of mistakes so that we don’t repeat them. But for future planning, we need to review the present as well as the past. We need to take stock and look at things as they are so that our future plans are based on reality and not illusions.

Setting limits

When Joshua became old and full of years he was relieved of leading the fight against the Sidonites. That teaches us that we should not ask others, or even ourselves to do things beyond our capabilities. That’s not to say we mustn’t try but no matter how hard you flap your arms, you won't fly. What it does say is that, as a boss, when things become too difficult for our people, we need to take over responsibility. No one can do everything. Some lack experience, some lack skill and some just have too much on their plate. For the small business, reaching beyond the business’s means is one of the main reasons for failure. To get a large company example, it is only necessary to recall what happened to the banks in the recent collapse.

On the negative side, how often has a good production official been promoted into an advisory, administrative, or even sales job and proved incompetent. The same applies to admin. people fordced out of their competence. That kind of promotion is unfair to the employee and it is the boss’s responsibility to make sure each promotion is in the employee’s interest as well as the company’s.

These notes are written in the belief that the Bible is not just a history book but something that teaches us how we should live and work.    

The Israelites cheated lesson

Taking another look at the story of the small tribe the Gibeonites making their peace with the Israelites I noticed that when the Israelites sampled the Gibeonites food to see if they had come from a long way away, they did not refer the thing to God and were cheated. How often do we get into trouble by agreeing to something or making an arrangement in business, a dinner date, buying another ‘thing’, or agreeing a price or delivery without conferring with, or even referring to our partner or our boss. The lessons the Bible teaches are not always ‘in our face’ and that’s why it is worth reading it with care and reflecting on its teaching. I once agreed an exchange rate, just for the purposes of calculation, with a supplier and found myself in trouble when the supplier insisted I had agreed it as part of the contract. I was lucky, by the time payment was due, the exchange rate was on our side. 

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Mergers and marriages

The next part of the Israelite story as they claim Canaan finds a small tribe coming to make peace with them, claiming to be from far off. They are included in the Israelite community as slaves, but are included and not slaughtered like other groups. It’s like the takeover business and a lesson as to how a small organisation might live within a major company by offering to be overtaken rather than wait for a hostile acquisition. In a well-managed takeover, the employees of the smaller company will still have jobs and careers, whereas in a hostile acquisition the anger generated by the resistance of the company taken over means a clear out of staff. How does the lesson apply to relationships? It’s unacceptable that one party in a relationship will become a slave to the other. In fact there should be no stronger and weaker partner and perhaps that is the lesson. If one partner feels inadequate, or is made to feel inadequate, then they will become a slave, losing personality and will, a sorrowful thing to watch. The story deals with two extreme alternatives and ignores the idea of just running away, which, in personal relationships is the best escape from something that is not based on mutual respect.