As I have been serving and leading for a little over 25 years, I have been continually confronted with the realities that we will hire and have to endure what the Bible calls “fools”. This isn’t meant to be disparaging as much as delineate those who are a pleasure to live life with and those who, themselves, are unbearable.
The Bible, and specifically the Proverbs, draw some clear distinctions between the way of the wise and the way of the fool. To walk in wisdom is to look to God’s leadership in your life. To submit to his way of doing things rather than your own. The fool is insistent on living life on their terms. As time goes on and as their life gets more unbearable and lonelier (because relationships can’t be endured when someone is unable to acquiesce to someone else), the fool becomes more entrenched in his ways.
Of course, at root of the way of the fool is pride. That is, thinking that he sees clearly and judges rightly…when, in fact, his vision is skewed to favor only him. This smacks the brick wall of reality, but the fool blames the inconvenience of the wall rather than adjust his way of interacting with it.
I have listed the various verses that reference the fool and have much to teach us and help us evaluate our teams and ourselves to ensure that we are not succumbing to the temptation to be a fool. The list is not exhaustive, though, as the word “fool” alone is used 64 times in Proverbs. As a result, the nuance that more verses could supply I will leave to you for your own study. The purposes of this article is simply to get you thinking and scratching the surfaces of your own heart and team dynamics.
The overarching truth that frames and contrasts with the way of the fool is Proverbs 1:7: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. To fear God should not be merely understood as a terror or trembling—though that is entirely derivative of encountering the majesty and holiness and beauty of God. Rather, to fear God is to revere him and to set his ethic as the lodestar of our lives. Notice that such fear is the beginning of knowledge. It is not the sum and substance. It gets us on the path. It serves as the sign at the crossroads of the decisions of our lives. As the two roads diverge in the wood, reverence and admiration and submission to God serves as the prerequisite to living in relationship to God. If you don’t have this kind of humility, then you cannot go on the path.
Such humility is seen again in Proverbs 10:8: The wise of heart will receive commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin. To be wise and to avoid foolishness is to take the posture of receptivity. This is to assume that we don’t see clearly and that we don’t have to fight for our way of doing things. Rather, we see the great benefit it is to be given direction. Inherent to this is the understanding that our little sphere is part of a larger geography. Wisdom teaches us that our worlds are not the world. The sun does not revolve around us. The great Copernican Revolution in our lives comes when we realize that this is not our world that everyone else is living in.
We see the characteristics of the fool:
1) The Fool Loves to Air his Own Opinion. He is not concerned with actually listening to other perspectives. His perspective is what needs to be heard. If it cuts across another person’s experience, then they must be cut. They must be shown their opinion is wrong.
You’ve been around this person on a team. They like to tell you what they know. They relish sharing their diverse experiences. They would do well to listen to Brian Regan’s bit called “I Walked on the Moon”.
Proverbs 10:10: Whoever winks the eye causes trouble, and a babbling fool will come to ruin.
Proverbs 12:15: The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.
Proverbs 15:2: The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly.
Proverbs 18:2: A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.
2) The Fool is a Slave to His Pleasure. Another way to put this is that they lack self-control. They indulge. If there is an experience or novelty, they must take part. This is not to say that the wise doesn’t have emotions. On the contrary, he has a great range of emotions…but he is not dictated by his anger or his discouragement. Instead, he is hemmed in by being able to submit his emotions to logic and reason and other’s needs in the moment.
Proverbs 29:11 – A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.
This is exhibited in another way…
3) The Fool is Not Judicious. That is, he is not able to assimilate his opinion and views into the larger whole. He not only loves to air his own opinion (#1 above), but he doesn’t weigh them before dropping them on someone. He is unable to read the room. This person can often be heard to say, “I just tell you like I see it.” This is not as virtuous as it sounds. It is a belittling of the other person…seeing as their reaction does not matter.
This person is unbearable on a team and slowly erodes the culture you are trying to nurture. The fool is an island and doesn’t value the inter-connection that a team affords him.
Proverbs 29:20 – Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.
4) The Fool Hides from Reality. Because the fool is hyper-focused on his perspective and being revered/respected by others, he has to bend reality to fit his vision. This person is slow to admit they might be wrong. Even less starkly, this person on a team has to argue until they are made to relent. This kind of posture is a cancer on a team.
It’s a cancer because it appears to be one of the cells in the organism, but it eats away at the other cells little bit by little bit. The fools sows seeds of discord by causing other to question their own reality. People get tired of arguing about whether that is heather gray or just gray…but the fool cannot be convinced that the reality is that it is tan…
You may have dated someone like this. You remember a situation very different than they do. Not entirely differently, mind you, but due to #3 above, the fool boyfriend won’t let it go. He has to be right and will fight you tooth and nail until you relent. Reality is not as important as being justified for him. Over time, this kills a relationship because you cannot continue to live in a house of his own design, especially when the winds of life inevitably blow that house of cards away.
Proverbs 14:8 – The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deceiving.
5) The Fool Doesn’t Take Responsibility. Reality has smacked the fool in the head with yet another failed relationship or lost job, but he refuses to see that he is the common denominator for the pain in his life. It is always other people or circumstances that just didn’t work out. The fool refuses to take responsibility because his ego is so very fragile. You see, if he admits he messed up, then, in his eyes, that means he is a mess up.
This is exhausting in a relationship and even more on a team that is seeking to progress. You can never move forward if someone can’t admit that they have messed up. Success results from bouncing off the walls of failure until you reach your destination. The problem with having a fool on a team is that he can never learn and implement and adjust course. No team that has sought to change the world has done it exactly right. This is due to the fact that we are finite and locked in time and limited vision. As a result, teams have to be ready and eager to admit their shortcomings so they can be freed from defending themselves and blaming things outside of themselves.
Proverbs 17:24 – The discerning sets his face toward wisdom, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth.
6) Given to Emotional Reaction. Similar to #3 in not being judicious, the way of the fool goes beyond the inability to weigh words. The fool is generally undisciplined. Evidenced in a perpetually messy desk, the fool has trouble organizing and prioritizing his life. I’ve heard it said that in job interviews, a certain CEO has someone on his staff go look inside the windows of the applicant’s car to see what kind of situation she has going on. Another CEO asks the applicant to drive him somewhere so he can see the inside of his car…and to see how he handles a myriad of obstacles he can’t control.
Typically, how someone drives is a good indicator of how they conduct their lives. The cleanliness of their spaces shows the clarity of their thought.
You can imagine the devastation this can wreak in a team. Being forced to walk on eggshells does not create an atmosphere of camaraderie as much as everyone having to adjust their orbits around this person. Over time, the adjusting of the orbit turns into altogether avoiding its gravitational pull.
Proverbs 14:16 – One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless.
7) The Fool Is not Wealthy. This, I admit, was a strange one to encounter in Scripture…but it’s there nonetheless. So what does it mean?
Because a fool is slave to their reality and their emotions and is not open to correcting course in life, his money is used to satisfy his pleasures that are often at his emotional whimsy. As a result, he is not able to delay gratification. This was notoriously studied in the Marshmallow Experiment.
So much of our success and relational strength stems from our ability to say no to our immediate wants. The husband who is unable to forestall his sexual urges for the sake of his harried and exhausted wife will find it hard to let his clients think on their decision a little longer—all the while being pursuant and attentive to their needs.
Our finances are an indicator of our ability to not only plan, but also to execute on those plans. Having a budget and sticking to a budget indicate whether you are a slave to your immediate wants or able to forestall immediate gratification for the sake of something better.
Proverbs 14:24 – The crown of the wise is their wealth, but the folly of fools brings folly
Proverbs 17:16 – Why should a fool have money in his hand to buy wisdom when he has no sense?
8) The Fool Lives in Drama. I have seen this times without number. Because the fool insists on his own way of living and cannot acquiesce to others, the planets that come in contact with his gravitational pull get whiplashed depending on his mood.
This results in incessant drama. Constant banter and fever pitch disputes.
As you craft your team, it is entirely valuable and warranted to ask about their lives. Where are they from? Do they keep up with their family? What do their relationships look like? Of course, you have to be discerning as to what is appropriate to ask, but it bears mentioning that you must seek to discern if there is drama in this person’s life. That drama never stays contained. It always comes to the office. It always finds its way into another call in sick day. It always finds it way into a cold interaction with a client on the phone.
Poke the bear just a little to see if there is drama and you will save yourself and your team months and even years of strife.
Proverbs 20:3 – It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling.
9) The Fool Doesn’t Ask for Help. Now this doesn’t mean that the wise person always asks for help…it means that the fool never asks for help. You see the difference. The wise person knows when he reaches the frontier of his knowledge and he asks a trusted guide to point out pitfalls that he may not know. He does’t ask for help before he starts the journey. He gets started and is willing to admit his limitations.
The fool, on the other hand, can be identified by his unwillingness to reach out to others. While he may appear very competent initially, his foolishness will be found out when little tasks fall through the cracks. Because he has said “yes” to too many things, he is not able to complete everything.
I have worked with fools like this. I have been a fool like this. I will get to the answer in my last point…but suffice to say that it is foolish to be averse to saying “no” and “can you help me out on this project”.
Proverbs 15:14 – The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed on folly.
10) The Fool Doesn’t Listen for Help. This is distinct from the previous point in that the fool is being given constant feedback from the world around him…but he doesn’t listen for it. In coaching situations where the person coming to me because they realize their need for help—usually because their world has come crashing down (see #8), the fool does not apply the directives given to him.
I have usually tested the waters by giving something very easy to accomplish for our next time together. If he doesn’t do it, he has shown himself to be a fool. After all, he came to me for help. I offer it. And he doesn’t apply it. Which leads to our next point.
Proverbs 23:9 – Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the good sense of your words.
BONUS:
11) The Fool Doesn’t Know How to Apply Learning. The fool typically wants to defend himself and prove that he is right because his worth is tied up into his ego. And because he is a slave to his emotions and unable to submit to the wisdom not his own, he does not know how to apply ideas that don’t originate with him. As the proverb below says, he is complacent. His world may have come crashing down, but instead of getting a shovel and sweeping even a little bit of the mess, he claims a sense of powerlessness or a sense of preoccupation with other matters.
This is to say, he is unable to prioritize his life and get to work on what matter most.
When interviewing someone for your team, you can tease out this foolish tendency by simply asking:
What are three of your personal goals in life?
What are you doing right now to accomplish those?
Do yourself and your team a huge, unsung favor. If the candidate looks at you dumbfounded or stammers, go on to the next candidate.
Proverbs 1:32 – For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them
Proverbs 26:7 – Like a lame man’s legs, which hang useless, is a proverb in the mouth of fools.
Proverbs 26:8 – Like one who binds the stone in the sling is one who gives honor to a fool.
Proverbs 26:9 – Like a thorn that goes up into the hand of a drunkard is a proverb in the mouth of fools.
Proverbs 26:11 – Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.