Leadership Lessons From NehemiahSample

Day 4: Continual Due Diligence 

The King doesn’t stop with a simple “yes”. He goes on to answer affirmatively to all of Nehemiah's follow up requests to make the project more manageable – sending him with the necessary timber to rebuild the wall and letters to the governors of neighboring regions to let them know Nehemiah is there with the King's support. 

Today, I want to look at what Nehemiah does when he finally arrives in Jerusalem. Specifically, let's look at how he goes right back to his formula: Pray + Plan then Push Forward. 

I don't know about you but, if I had shown up like Nehemiah did, I'm pretty sure I would have wanted to explain everything right away to anyone who would listen. 

Think about his entourage showing up after a 1,000-mile trip and the excitement of seeing Jerusalem (probably for the first time in Nehemiah’s life). For context, this would be like walking / riding a donkey from Pennsylvania to Florida. 

Nehemiah doesn't immediately jump into vision-casting mode. Instead, he spends three days doing due diligence and praying and then, on the third evening, he quietly inspects the wall. 

Finally, when he’s ready, Nehemiah gathers the people and explains why he's there. Motivating the people to action is no small feat – these people are mostly farmers living outside the city walls, stretched thin with too much to do. He's asking them to add a huge project to their plate and no one has experience rebuilding a wall or even doing much construction of any kind. 

However, because of the evidence gathered and the Lord's favor, Nehemiah is able to convince these too-busy people to jump in on a project that they really don’t have the experience to do. How many of us would like to be able to do that?

As he pursues his goal, Nehemiah continues to validate and refine the original vision he prayed, planned, and pushed forward in Babylon. When you are operationalizing your vision, you must continue to validate that you are on the right path. When considering any big project, from a breakthrough scientific discovery to launching a new business, it's tempting to assume that success will follow from a single stroke of brilliance.

In fact, it almost never works that way. Innovation is an inherently iterative process. If you've spent time around entrepreneurs over the last few years, you have probably heard of The Lean Startup  by Eric Ries. Ries’s methodology (borrowed from the scientific method) has you iterate releases of "minimum viable product" (or MVP), learning from customers' interactions and folding those insights into the next MVP. (Aside: I'm not crazy about the term “viable” and argue in my own book, The Science of Growth, to rename them MAPs – Minimum Awesome Products).  

Regardless of what you call it, the concept is to continually iterate building a minimal product that:

"allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort."

Often this process starts with customer interviews or other types of diligence before there is even a product.

We don’t know if (or how) Nehemiah changed his vision after three days of due diligence – he may have just observed details that strengthened his conviction around the original vision. Whichever it was, he clearly used that ground truth to strengthen his own belief, which inspired and motivated others in turn. The lesson is to not get ahead of yourself and don’t ignore reality. Take every opportunity to check that you are making progress against the original vision and to align the details with the facts you observe on the ground.