When faced with a large task many managers do not know where to begin. They look at the looming task ahead and attempt to address several facets at the same time. Soon they fail! Nehemiah correctly saw the project of rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls as massive. However, as we follow Nehemiah in chapter three we notice he did not make the common mistakes of so many in leadership as he oversaw a seemingly impossible assignment.
The first common mistake Nehemiah avoided was underestimating the task. Sometimes managers simply lack experience. They have never before faced something of the scope of the task, and they really do not know how much energy or skill it will take, or how long it will take, to complete it. At other times, this failure is due to an unwillingness to face up to a task perceived to be unpleasant. A student putting off studying for a final exam might be in this category. “There’s plenty of time to study,” he might say. He actually needs all the time he can get. The reason the student speaks that way is that he or she does not want to face studying. The student needs to divide up the unpleasant work and then tackle a bit of it every day.
Another common mistake is laziness – letting the work go until the end. The student mentioned could also be an example of this second failure. He could simply be procrastinating, letting the work slide until it becomes too late to get it done.
There is a natural tendency to tackle the more interesting problems before more basic ones. If you like to plan parties rather than write letters, you might neglect to send out the invitations. Yet without the invitations there will be no parties. On one occasion, theologian Carl F. H. Henry was invited to a northwestern university to give lectures on Christianity. His host was an energetic young man named Doug Coe, who later performed marvelous work among government leaders in our nation’s capital. Coe had a vision for reaching the university. He put together a planning committee, chose a theme, contacted his speaker, picked a date, and reserved the hall. But when the day came and Henry and Coe were together backstage before the first lecture, Coe looked out through the curtain and was stunned. There was no one there. Why? He had forgotten to advertise the event. So instead of the great meetings he had envisioned, his committee held a small Bible study with Henry presiding.
Dividing up the task (if it is well done) assures that each necessary part will get covered, the less exciting parts as well as those that are more challenging.
Some people make the mistake of trying to do too many things at once or trying to do all that needs to be done themselves. The proper way to get an important job done is the way Nehemiah went about it. The first step in his handling of the job was to divide it into manageable sections. There are two more things that should be said. First, in most cases, what needs to follow the dividing of the task is prioritizing. Fundamental things need to be set in the first position. Lesser or more complex tasks need to be set further along. Second, again in most cases, these manageable sections need to be tackled one item at a time. Remember Peter Drucker’s comment: “Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.”
This involves time management, of course. It means that the effective leader must use time to his advantage. Many have found that one secret of managing time well is blocking it so that sufficient time is allotted to accomplish something, then fitting other things in around that.
Prioritizing! Doing one thing at a time! You may remember that when we mentioned these in connection with Nehemiah, we said “in most cases.” This is because in Nehemiah’s case, dividing the reconstruction of the wall into manageable sections did not result in one section being given priority over another or one section being completed before a second section was begun. In this case, the wall itself was the priority. The whole thing needed to be done as soon as possible – before the enemies of the Jews attacked them or in some other way hindered its completion. As we go on, however, we will see that Nehemiah had other goals too, and he worked on these at the appropriate time.
Maranatha!
(mar-uh-nath-uh – “Our Lord Comes”)
Pastor Steve can be reached at PastorSteve@MaranathaBibleChurch.org