Earlier this summer, I finished a twenty-four week Bible class covering historical Bible books and presenting the salvation story in chronological order (affiliate link).
Suffice it to say, the class was a life-changing experience in multiple ways, including from a strategic thinking perspective.
Over time, I've discovered many business lessons in my personal strategic thinking tapestry originated in the Bible. Perspectives on servant leadership, communicating ideas to a suspicious group, and personal integrity, among many others, tie to hearing Bible lessons either directly or perhaps by osmosis.
Keeping Only What’s Needed
One strategic thinking perspective I’d missed, however, was eliminating everything extraneous and contradictory until all that is left is something or someone who is absolutely right to move forward.
For example, think about the story of Noah and the flood. There was a clear willingness to save only a few people versus trying to protect others who weren't on the program (to borrow some corporate-speak jargon).
That's never been how I've approached business strategy. While I've had to implement strategies to indiscriminately cut to the bare bones and reduce people and business expenses in order to start afresh, I’m not generally a proponent of the strategy. Instead, I'm a big advocate of trying to save and rehabilitate what you have available, even if it's not exactly right. To me, it's generally smarter to take best advantage of what you have rather than cut out what you might be able to adapt in some way. I've always seen this as decreasing the risk of falling short of the resources needed to implement a new strategy.
A New Strategic Thinking Perspective
But now, having seen in how many situations, the stories we studied involved protecting perhaps only one, absolutely right person to move the story forward, it has me thinking. Given how well all the other Bible-based strategic thinking perspectives I’ve adopted have served me, I’m considering expanding my personal strategic tapestry with this new lesson on keeping only what’s needed.
Which side of this strategy question do you embrace? - Mike Brown
