JETHRO

As you all know Jethro, father in law of Moses, is not a very familiar person.  We hear only very little about him from  the Bible.  Yet, the timely advice given by him was really significant and helped Moses in the Management of the affairs of the Israelites on their journey to Canaan.  They are still relevant and useful to us.
    When Israelites were camping in the wilderness after leaving Egypt under the leadership of Moses, Jethro came there to drop Moses's wife and two sons.  There, he noticed that Moses was spending the whole day in settling the trivial disputes among the people, and left with no time to plan their march towards Canaan.  At this stage, Jethro intervened and offered excellent suggestions to get over their problems.

Suggestion – I
    At the outset, Jethro said to  Moses "You are not doing the thing in the right way" (Exodus 18/17) implying that the system followed by Moses in dealing with the internal affairs of the Israelites was basically wrong.  He further said, "This is too much for you to do it alone, you will wear yourself  out and these people as well" (Exodus 18/8).  He pointed out that handling cases of so many people, all at his end would really drain his strength as well as that of Israelites.  That apart, it would divert the attention of everyone from their main objective.  Similarly, if we pursue secondary issues more vigorously when God's calling was different, we would land up in a mess and fail to achieve the noble goals set for us.

Suggestion – II
    Secondly, Jethro told Moses to "stand up before the God for this people"
(Exodus 18/19).  Jethro realised that the arrangement followed by Moses, prevented him from spending more time with the Lord.  Therefore, Jethro advised Moses to spend more time with the Lord, instead of standing before the people.  The interpretation is that Leaders are required to spend more time with God everyday as that would only give them strength to lead the organisation/people successfully.  Our personal efforts, knowledge, experience, intelligence, hardwork etc may not help us beyond a point.

Suggestion- III
    Jethro advised Moses to delegate the responsibilities to trusted second line leaders in his camp so that they handle the routine issues and bring before Moses only the policy and important matters (Exodus 18/21-22).  This is a two way strategy.  One is to identity the routine issues that can be delegated to some chosen men and the other is to earmark those responsibilities to be handled at the leaders level.  In otherwords, Jethro suggested a two way hierarchy system, one is the policy making apex authority and the other is the implementing subordinate agency.  In India,  important decisions are taken by the Cabinet of the Central and State Govts., whereas the subordinate officials implement such decisions.  This is called as the system of 'delegation of powers' or 'division of labour'.
    Each  and every activity cannot be reported to the boss.  The boss should be relieved of all secondary/routine matters.  The boss should have enough time to concentrate on planning the future and take all policy and important decisions.  Unless this is done, there would be no speedy disposal of business and concentration of authority at the top level would block raising up of second line leaders.  Timely advice by Jethro helped Moses to spend more time with God and handle really great malters effectively.

Suggestion IV
    Finally Jethro advised Moses to accept his suggestion after knowing God's will.(Exodus 18/23) and implement the same as "God commands".  In my opinion, the greatness of Jethro lies here.  He did not want to force his ideas on any one but wanted Moses to act as per God's plan.  We too need to know God's plan in every aspect of our life.
    A commentator has observed that this little known man is the world's first Management Consultant. Another has observed that we should celebarate 'father in law day' in honour of Jethro.  I have no hesitation to endorse this.

Joseph Stephen
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