Former Vice-President and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, announced June 1, that after 40 decades of marriage, they were “separating”.  The relationship that endured Vietnam, political campaign wins and losses, almost losing their 6-year-old son in a car accident, and a son in rehab during 2007, finally is folding.  In an e-mail sent to friends, the Gores said it was “a mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration.”  Their media statement is that they “grew apart”, each pursuing separate interests.  So apparently a lot has happened since the famous kiss on the platform during the 2000 Democratic presidential convention.

Without chasing the obvious talking points like “Where’s commitment anymore?” and “What were they thinking?”, I discovered another truth.  There’s a strategy for everything.  Well, almost everything.  I guess, technically, the Gores had a storybook beginning strategy, falling in love after their senior prom and getting married in a 1970 Washington Cathedral ceremony.  Washington’s power couple with the “happy” image worked on a strategy for ending their marriage, but a strategy to sustain it over the last 10 years was not in place.

Or how about the Gulf oil spill?  Over 36,000 ideas to cap it have been received by BP since the crisis began, but there was no pre-existing strategy.  President’s Obama’s blank stare at the oil blobs on the Louisiana beaches revealed he lacks a plan.  So, adding in Al and Tipper, BP, and my spontaneous impulse decision to drive to Starbucks for coffee this morning, at least 3 things on the planet went forward without a pre-planned strategy. 

I’m wondering if it’s the norm.  Do most people just float with life like rafting whitewater, hitting the paddles when needed to keep from being dumped or drowned?  Is it simply good to go with the daily flow of life circumstances without a specific plan of action?  Is life all about reacting to the stuff that happens to us?  Is life just an existence held together by the next text message, project, game, anniversary, movie, meal, party, payment, laugh, baby, paycheck, trip, exam, doctor’s appointment, funeral, drink, or car wreck?  Where’s the strategy?  Do we even need one?  

Yes.  Let’s go deeper.

For example, what’s your strategy when nobody else cares?  What do you do when nobody is concerned about what is happening in your life?  What is your response when nobody is interested in getting something important done?  How do you react when you see a need but nobody else gets it?  Maybe it’s a wife dying for attention and answers from a pre-occupied husband.  Or a son needing direction on a big decision but afraid to approach his dad who really doesn’t know him anymore.  There’s a frustrated employee who sees co-workers unconcerned about getting work done and resolving problems.  Perhaps there’s a husband whose wife is totally unconscious when it comes to controlling her spending or sticking with a budget, and bankruptcy is a reality.  A coach struggles with a team that won’t give 110% and isn’t bothered about losing.  Possibly there’s a disappointed dad whose daughter should be a 4.0 student and she’s already over 10,000 texts this month.  There’s a teacher frustrated when the administration won’t be proactive with student discipline.  The single mom knows nobody is going to step forward to make her car payment, fix the meals or plumbing, help with homework, or babysit her kids.  Sometimes sub-contractors don’t show up for the builder.  What’s the strategy when you know what needs to be done and either everybody else is clueless, unmotivated, or maybe even hostile to moving forward in sales, winning games, rediscovering romance, fixing the finances, finishing the house, finding a babysitter, enforcing the rules, getting the GPA, or maximizing potential?

Every person—every leader, mom, dad, coach, boss, player, employee, teacher, manager—walks through moments or seasons of zero reaction.  When the back-up doesn’t show-up, when the support is not there, people are content to just keep on living like they have been, and you realize if things change that it’s all on you, what’s your strategy?  When you realize that nothing will be done unless you get focused, start it, and keep it going for awhile, what are you going to do?  Believe it or not, those who are tired of propping up, pushing, pleading, and persuading, had better have a survival plan.

Nehemiah did.  The 5th century B.C. Jewish cupbearer to the Babylonian king felt compelled to return to the total disaster in Jerusalem and revive a failed project—rebuild the city wall.  To achieve that goal required that he assume leadership of a depressed minority, recreate confidence, restore moral standards, and reinstitute serious worship of God.   Tragically consistent with every situation or relationship that requires rebuilding is that disillusionment had decayed into complacency.  Not a single person had been willing to restart a movement or ministry from that mess—not “the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the others” (Neh. 2:16).  Whether they had intentionally given up, or just slowly abandoned the idea that things could ever be better, the population was co-existing with failure and fear of real enemies.  That’s a miserable life.  Think about it.  They are still going through the motions of worship and making a living while the whole infrastructure is in shambles.  No different than the Gores faking a real marriage for several years.  How can anybody ever get to the point where they no longer care, are no longer willing to fight the enemies, or no longer energized to give their best for God?

Here’s some of what I discovered as I investigated Nehemiah’s response.  His strategy was definitely God-driven.  So, if you’re in a tough place, facing a huge responsibility and nobody cares, maybe these thoughts will help.  Hope you buy in.

The best strategy when nobody cares?

Step No. 1:  Speak out.  Talk about the elephant in the room.  The reason you speak up is totally because nobody cares.  How does caring about wasted lives and lost opportunities get started?  Simply by somebody willing to stir things up.  The tendency is to back away in self-pity because nobody cares, shut-up, or carefully parse words to avoid controversy, conflict, and opposition.  Everybody wants approval, but waiting until you’ll be liked or appreciated will cost you the opportunity.  Speaking out will simultaneously reduce your fears and increase your determination to follow-through with doing what’s right.  Start the chain of caring.  Laundry doesn't start until momma yells, "Pick up your clothes!"  Couples can't solve problems unless they talk about problems.  Maybe your mate will start caring when they see start the conversation.

Get loud if necessary.  Be animated if it works.  Get informed.  Embrace the role of being the smartest person in the room on this issue.  Know your facts, but show your passion. The longer a person or group has tolerated something that is sinful, sub-standard, or inflicting suffering, the more anesthetized they become. 

So God requires leaders to wake people up!  What you say will be controversial and challenging because things are upside down.  John Maxwell says, “The reason people are unchanged is because they are unchallenged.”  The most miserable people in the world are not non-believers, but compromised believers!  Regardless of whether people want to talk about what needs to be changed or their personal responsibility, somebody has to serve it up to them.  If you wait until everything is perfect, until it’s easier, until everybody is in agreement, until you are supported, until circumstances are better, nothing gets done.  It’s not about perfection—it’s about direction!  Get something going by making people aware of what’s at stake.  If a married couple waited to have kids until they could afford them, they’d never have kids!

The positive take is that sometimes you get a happy ending like Nehemiah did.  Walls get rebuilt.  Grades improve.  Marriages heal.  Sons talk to their dads.  But stuff only gets worse if ignored.  Walls don’t get rebuilt by thinking positive or wishing it to happen.  Somebody has to initiate the conversation.  Talk about the elephant in the room.  Face the sin and the people who permitted it to go down and stay down.

Surfacing the need is also the first real proof to yourself and others that you are committed to getting involved.  Repeat the message often.  People usually don’t get it the first time they hear it.  Keep it simple and understandable.  Demand to be heard.  Whether it’s your husband, wife, son, daughter, team, students, co-workers, voters, mom, or dad...expect people to listen.  If you don’t think the issue or need is critical, they won’t.  If you display urgency, it forces them to vote up or down about whether a problem exists and who really has their arms around the problem.

After Nehemiah had taken an individual, private tour of the disaster area with its broken down walls and burned gates, rather than retreat in depression, overwhelmed by the size of the task, he steps up.  It’s not that the people were confused like BP over which strategy would work—they weren’t even talking about rebuilding anymore.  His first media statement of 36 words framed the problem:  “You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach” (Neh. 1: 17).

The first responsibility of any leader—a dad, CEO, coach, teacher, contractor, congressman, Wal-Mart manager, or talk-show host—is not to cast vision, but to define reality.  Nehemiah defined their reality in such a way that the people immediately voted “yes”.  They said, “Let us rise up and build.”  It was like saying, “We’re in!  This is what we’ve waited for!  We believe!  Let’s do it!”  How did he “speak out” in a way that inspired them to do what nobody had been willing to do before?  What was there in his approach that motivated the people to commit to this on the spot?  What principles can you take away to help your family, business, ministry, team, school, or clients?  Check it out in the next blog . . .

(to be continued in the next blog)