Loss and Discovery

What the Torah Can Teach Us about Leading Change

Russell M. Linden

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781666701111, 9781666701128
• eBook ISBN: 9781666701135
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

This book offers guidance to professional and lay leaders on how to lead change during disruptive times. It explores Torah episodes, as well as numerous contemporary examples, all of which reveal important lessons on what to do and what not to do, when navigating today's unpredictable and turbulent environment. The book draws on biblical sources, leadership studies, neuropsychology, history, economics, and other fields that help leaders understand how to prepare for and implement change. It also includes insights from Abraham Lincoln, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Nelson Mandela, and Colin Powell, as well as change agents in religious communities, law enforcement, human services, and politics. The emphasis is on practical methods that leaders can begin using today.

PART 1

Focus on the “Main Thing”

There is a phrase I like that was made famous by author and leadership educator Stephen Covey:

“The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.”

Covey was writing about time management, focusing on priorities, and avoiding items that distract you from your main things. Frankly, my initial reaction to it was, “Sounds kind of cutesy.” But over time I’ve realized that it’s anything but. First, we need to identify what our “main thing” is, and that’s not always obvious. Second, our lives are filled with distractions. How often do you stop what you’re working on to check email, or get interrupted when trying to concentrate by someone who needs your assistance, or get a message that makes today’s “to-do” list obsolete? It takes real discipline to keep the “main thing” the main thing.

Jim Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape and vice president of FedEx, used to preach the same “main thing” mantra to his business associates, over and over (and over). Barksdale was referring to that one process or method or core value that was its key to success. Years later many associates recalled it being one of the most important pieces of work advice they’d ever received.

What are the “main things” when it comes to leading change? There are many, and I’ve chosen three. They provide the topics for the first three chapters of this book:

•Communications

•Building trusting relationships

•Learning what resistance to change is all about, and how to address it

These will be recurring themes throughout the book. They’re definitely “main things” that anyone trying to lead change should understand.

1

In the Beginning . . . It All Starts with Communications

To the east, God planted a garden in Eden, setting the man there whom [God] had formed. Then, out of the soil, God grew trees alluring to the eye and good for fruit; and in the middle of the garden the Tree of Life and the Tree of All Knowledge. . . . So God took the man, placing him in the Garden of Eden. . . . God then commanded the man, saying, “You may eat all you like of every tree in the garden—but of the Tree of Knowledge you may not eat, for of the moment you eat of it you shall be doomed to die.”

—Genesis 2:8–17

The first pages of Genesis give us an enormous amount to consider when it comes to communications and change. The Torah’s first phrase, “When God was about to create heaven and earth”—translations of the Hebrew vary—introduces a phenomenal series of creations: light and darkness, the heavens and earth, waters and dry land, all kinds of vegetation, fish, birds, animals and finally humans. Toward the end of the sixth day, when all of God’s work was complete we read God saw that it was very good.

It’s a breathtaking start to a remarkable series of stories, characters, victories and defeats, heroes and villains, covenants made and broken, and families with more than their share of dysfunction. And yet, we don’t have much time to savor it, nor does God. For immediately after completing the sixth day of creation and resting on the seventh, God puts man in the garden of Eden with the instructions about the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And then the troubles begin.

For once God creates woman (we learn her name later) a serpent confronts her, saying that God won’t kill her if she eats the fruit from the tree of knowledge:

You most certainly will not die! On the contrary God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing all things. (Gen 3:4–5)

The woman looks at the tree, sees that it’s beautiful and that the fruit looks tasty. She senses that eating it would make her wise. She takes a bite, gives it to the man and he also starts eating.

The clever serpent provides two critical lessons about change. First, it’s important to communicate how a given change will benefit people. The serpent speaks to Eve’s interests and desires: to enjoy tasty food, to learn, to gain wisdom. And second, we don’t need formal power to create change. God had enormous power, the serpent had none, but it knew how to use influence. How utterly ironic: the mischievous, clever snake is the first character in the Hebrew Bible to successfully convince someone to change.

After Eve and then Adam take the bite, God announces severe punishments: women will forever bear children in pain and must be subservient to their husbands; men will have to earn a living by the sweat of their labors. And the serpent doesn’t fare any better.

As a child reading this passage in Sunday School, it struck me as a morality tale. Make a big mistake, you’ll regret it. But as adults we should step back and ask some probing questions about this strange beginning. Questions like:

•What was God’s goal in saying that the tree’s fruit was off limits?

•Why such astonishing consequences?

•If God is trying to change humans’ behaviors, why start with a threat? Would a simple introduction to each other have helped, perhaps something about their roles, or about the garden and its delights?

•And finally, with whom did God communicate? Right, only the man (look at the quote at start of this chapter again). God forms woman immediately after giving the man his marching orders.

You see the problem. Or problems. In terms of our main theme—that change involves both loss and discovery—humans lost a great deal when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. God may have lost some hope that humans would follow God’s ways. As for discoveries, Adam and Eve learned something about desire and risk. Note: There are many other interpretations of this story (which is true of the entire Torah). We’ll look at a different interpretation below.

This book is about leading change, and effective communication is one of its critical components. Indeed, the eminent Torah scholar Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes that there are moments when the fate of the world depends on our communications.1 In this opening chapter we’ll examine three factors that are usually necessary for effective communications: context, relationships, and perspectives. We’ll explore the power of repetition in our communications and identify some ways to understand others’ perspectives.

God’s challenges in the Garden of Eden

In most cases, asking someone to initiate a change shouldn’t start with the ask. Better to have a preexisting relationship built on trust; better to think about the information the other person needs to make sense of the request. And it certainly works better when we keep the other’s needs and interests in mind. All of this make sense to our twenty-first-century sensibilities. But, as the title of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s masterpiece, God in Search of Man, suggests, the God described in the Torah is continually seeking a way to relate to humans. And, in my opinion, God’s approach raises many questions and sta...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1: Focus on the “Main Thing”
• Part 2: Pay Attention to External Voices and Also Your Own
• Part 3: Lead Indirectly When a Direct Path Isn’t Possible
• Part 4: Create a Culture That Fosters Learning, Growth, and Change
• Afterword: On Resilience
• Appendix A: Some Methods for Communicating Effectively during Change
• Appendix B: Science, Our Brains, and the SCARF Model
• Appendix C: William Bridges’s Transition Model
• Appendix D: Peter Block’s Stakeholder Model
• Appendix E: Mindsets
• Appendix F: The Israelites’ Forty-Year Journey from Egypt to the Promised Land
• Appendix G: Developing Interview Questions That Reveal People’s Attitudes
• Bibliography