Biblical Lessons in Strategic Planning from Joseph’s Life

We all know about poor little Joseph. His story takes 14 chapters in Genesis from 37 through 50, a whopping 28% of the entire book. He was his father’s favorite, his mother died in childbirth with his baby brother Benjamin, his half-brothers from other mothers hated him and sold him into slavery.

He refused sex and did prison time on false attempted rape charges. He had a penchant for interpretting dreams and visions. He masterfully hid his identity from the jealous brothers and then created a scenario that forced them to admit their wrongs and allowed him to reveal his true identity.

It could be argued that Joseph was really the first recorded strategic planner. What does a strategic planner do? According to JobDescriptions.net, a strategic planner “ is responsible for guiding the company through financial obstacles and helping to achieving its goal of continued profitability and growing revenues.”

Also:

a strategic planner determines where an organization is heading over the next year or more. He formulates strategies or suggests changes or improvements to current business plans, policies, and procedures. It is his job to formulate feasible recommendations to the management on how to optimize near-term growth.
Strategic planning is the process by which the executive management establishes the long-term direction of an organization. Basic steps include assessing the company’s environment and resources, defining the mission and vision, identifying priorities and objectives, and selecting valuable strategies.

Clearly, in Genesis 41, Joseph functions as a strategic planner. He helped Pharaoh identify a coming crisis to the entire country, which could be viewed as a mega-corporation. He recommended the path forward to Pharaoh for a policy of storing the harvest in plentiful years and set procedures for distributions from the stores in the drought. The plan was long-range and involved nearly 15 years of planning and execution. He assessed current resources and developed a strategy for managing those resources during the lean years.

But he wasn’t always a world-class strategic planner. He had a lot of hard times. Any of those hard times could have knocked him down and out, depressed and oppressed him to the point of never being more than a slave.

So, besides faith in God, what was it that he had that prepared him for serving Pharaoh? It was his teachability, his willingness to learn from situations. What lessons did he learn?

Dreaming big doesn’t necessarily mean dreaming for the now or that you’re ready (Joseph 37:5–11)

God gave Joseph two dreams. In one all the wheat sheaves in his family bowed to his wheat sheaf. In another, the sun, moon, and 11 stars bowed to him.

While these dreams were big, they weren’t for the immediate now. And when he shared them, he showed that he had the rash, reckless impetuosity of youth that were irritating and came across as prideful and arrogant. He just wasn’t ready to handle them.

Some dreams just take years to plan and execute. Others take a lifetime. On the path to the dream, you have to learn and grow along the way.

Unjust circumstances can be a prison or a stepping stone (Genesis 39)

Potiphar purchased Joseph and placed Joseph in a position of trust running Potiphar’s household. Joseph faithfully executed his duties, including refusing to sleep with Potiphar’s wife.

A scorned woman, Potiphar’s wife managed to set in place circumstances that made it look like Joseph tried to rape her. That landed him in prison.

Joseph could have gone into a massive pity party; instead, he lived faithfully and righteously with his God and earned the warden’s favor so that Joseph ran the prison for the warden.

A strong person properly expresses negative emotions (Genesis 42:24, 43:30–31, 45:2)

Along the way to developing and following the plan to save Egypt, Joseph was wounded by his brothers. They separated him from his family and sold him. He was lost to them, and they and his father were lost to him. He could have been so angry and bitter that he never left a place of slavery. Or he could have been so brutal and cruel that he killed his tormentors outright.

Instead throughout his life’s journey, he learned wisdom and people skills. Not only could he manage goods, he attained self-mastery that allowed him to be self-controlled when he needed to be and express his emotions in a private setting where it didn’t affect his strategic efforts for all of Egypt.

Accumulated wealth is not evil and can be used for good (Genesis 47:13–26)

As the famine continued and food got scarce, food could no longer be given away. It had to be sold. The people first sold their goods and their livestock. When that was gone, they sold their land for food. They became pharaoh’s slaves.

Now it could be argued that pharaoh should have just given away the food. But if we go back to the idea of Egypt as a mega-corporation, most corporations are in business to make money. Therefore, selling the food made sense. The good thing that pharaoh did was that he used the money to keep his own people alive (albeit as slaves) instead of spending it for opulent and decadent living (at least at first).