Business Strategies and Decision Making According to the Bible

The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible is a book of wisdom written by King Solomon. One key piece of wisdom is "there is a right time for everything".  There is more to it and the extras are covered in this post.

The Map of Wisdom:
Let's begin with the mind-map that captures the essence of the decision making wisdom of Solomon:

Key Lessons:

1. Everything in Life goes in Cycles. 
• It is important for you decide at which stage or phase you are or your business is in? There is the technology S-Curve. There are the TALC Technology Adoption Life Cycle and the Market/Category Development Life Cycle of Geoffery Moore. You can look at the technology and the market life cycle of your business. You can extend that to cover the PESTEL factors of politics, economy, society, technology, environment and laws. There is this supply chain of customers, suppliers, staff, management, partners, owners. Which stage are they in? Are they just starting, scaling up fast, maturing or declining?
2. Under the Situation and the Type of Action Needed. 
• While Solomon says there is a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to harvest etc, the key word is not just the timing but also the action. The mind-map shows 8 types of action that you can take such as to start or to quit, to invest or to sell out, to compete or to co-operate, to tear down or to rebuild, to be sad or to celebrate, to keep or to give, to stay quiet or speak up, to embrace/merge or to separate and depart. The wisdom is in knowing what to do at the right time. You have to read the situation and understand it carefully.
3. Seize the Kairos and not the Chrons Time.
• Chronos time is the time that just go on.
• Kairos time is the opportune time. The event or milestone time. You know the kairos time by reading the trends as in point 1. You create the kairos event time by your action as in point 2. 
• Read and understand the trend. Be prepare for it. Don't be caught by surprise and ends in disaster is the great warning given by Solomon. He said most people got caught. May you be the one that rides the wave rather than be sinked by it.
4. The Multiple Factors
• You can't win on just being strong in one particular factor alone.
• Solomon lists out 5 factors of speed, strength (of resources), knowledge, smartness of seeing and adapting, and the master skills. We know the sad stories of many famous artists and performers. They have great talents that the world know not or got to know after their death. It is important that we don't just be good at our own domain but to connect to others. Success is usually team work with lots support from others. Get mentors, seek advice, collaborate, build relationships with others. Be interested in knowing about the knowledge of other domains. Steve Jobs success is not a one man show. He know how to connect and ride on the work and talents of others in diversed fields. See The Least Known Strength of Steve Jobs - Standing On ...

Hope this is helpful to you as you strategize to grow your business or personal life to the next level.

One more thing, you may know that this is very similar to the teaching of I-Ching, the Bible of Change of the Chinese.

See Making I-Ching Come Alive! The Key Principles & Applications

and Strategic Planning - How To Read a Situation with Fusion of East & West.

Lim Liat (c) 21 Aug 2013