It’s inevitable that the lessons of the Hebrew Scriptures would find a place among the myriad New Age business bibles. Religious figures ranging from Jesus to Muhammad to the Dalai Lama have been cited in modern success stories — so it seems fitting that someone fretting about IPOs should seek solace from the hero of Exodus.
Rabbi David Baron’s new book, “Moses on Management — 50 Lessons from the Greatest Manager of All Time,” attempts to fill that void, leading readers out of the literary desert and into the promised land of harmony in the workplace.
That’s the intent, anyhow. And Baron actually succeeds on a number of fronts. His book, which is a quicker read than the average Sunday New York Times, manages to convey some Jewish history while delivering pithy advice. It’s also funny, although the humor is sometimes unintentional.
Typical of the book’s format is a section called “Watch for Burning Bushes.” In this section, the author writes that because of Moses’ powers of observation, he was able to notice an “odd quirk of nature.” The bush, of course, is how God communicates with Moses.
Likewise, Baron writes, “As we walk down our own paths, we all encounter ‘burning bushes’ — anomalous events, odd coincidences, and quirky insights…but how many of us turn off the path, as Moses did, to see whether a life-changing revelation awaits us?”
Later in the same section, he quotes Eric Gould, the president of an online meditation company — and one of many like-minded executives cited in the book. Gould comments, “It’s vital to question inconsistencies. Even if we see that the burning bush is different, we might not ask why it is different.”
In his eagerness to relate the life of Moses to modern-day dilemmas, Baron occasionally overreaches. He writes as if he expects someone to walk to the water cooler and witness a co-worker spontaneously bursting into flames. At that point, he would probably ask, “Now, why are flames shooting out of Frank like that?”
At other times, Baron’s humor and biblical takes hit the mark. In a section called “Don’t Be Blinded by Your Own Power,” Baron demonstrates how Moses’ humility engendered trust among the formerly enslaved Israelites. He contrasts that with the actions of former President George Bush.
Baron describes an incident during the 1992 campaign, when the past president paid a visit to a National Grocers Association convention. Bush marveled at a bar-code reader as “a look of wonder flickered across his face.”
Noting that bar-code readers were not new at the time, and had been used for more than a decade, Baron writes, “By that night Americans everywhere knew just how out of touch Mr. Bush was with the lives of ordinary citizens, which badly hurt his credibility.”
Another biblical lesson from Moses is recognizing that “faith has to be renewed.” The author demonstrates several times that the Jews wandering through the desert were not, by and large, a happy lot. Indeed, there was a lot of kvetching going on. But Moses stayed the course, convincing his flock to believe in his leadership.
In keeping with those tenets, Baron interviewed Jonas Salk, saying it was the microbiologist’s last televised interview before his death. Salk was quoted as saying that he initially faced heavy ridicule for his work in discovering a polio vaccine, and later in his work toward developing a vaccine for AIDS. But his faith in the tasks carried him through.
One of the most salient lessons of Baron’s book is this: No matter how harsh the vagaries of business life today, it’s nothing compared to biblical times. A chapter called “Resolve Conflicts Quickly and Objectively” points out the disaster that befell those Israelites who refused to see Moses as an instrument of God: They were swallowed up along with their entire families.
And what is the author’s modern-day method of preventing plagues of locusts, being swallowed up by natural forces, or smiting the first-born dead?
Hire a dispute mediator.