Great Questions = Nuggets of Gold:
Recently, I listened to a leader describing the moment her team faced a critical decision. The future of their organization depended upon answering this: “Where are we going from here? Where to invest limited resources?” Up to that point, they’d poured immense value into a well-executed print magazine. The season of hardcopy was closing, so the question was, “How to navigate from here.”
- They used a clarifying question to determine what to stop doing v/s where to re-focus future efforts:
“What efforts feel like we’re rolling a boulder downhill? Where does it feel like all we need to do is guide the boulder as gravity moves it forward? Where’s this happening in our story?”
((Then flipping the question))…
“Where do we feel like we’re pushing a boulder uphill? Where does it take effort and repeated, draining energy just to keep it moving?”
Our gut-responses to this question may yield insight to missions which need pruning.
The deliverables of the right questions are right answers. The deliverables of wrong questions are wrong answers.
paraphrased from Henry Blackaby
I’m convinced there’s a Good Lord, advocating for us by directing us to paths of goodness, divine purpose and destiny. We may, at times, struggle to align in hard things, (marriage, parenting, leading in our wheelhouse). But, in the deepest chambers of our deep hearts, we want to advance down the best paths for our best journeys. More than we’re aware, opportunities to shift onto better paths are often made available to us. We can trust that the lanes God gives us will deliver the best ROI, for the long term – and beyond.
Good answers come from good questions. Good questions tend to develop clarity when we’re seeking for them.
More good questions:
- Where are we moving against the grain of who we were meant to become?
- Where are we moving with the grain of who we were meant to become?
Seeking, engaging, and churning good questions often provide a straight path to becoming people of deeper strength. Once a good question is discovered, journal on it, ruminate on it, present it to others. When a clear plan of action is produced by the refining nature of good questions – that’s when we have a critical choice to make. When we act on that wisdom we’ve made it our own at a whole new level.
A few steps toward the deeper end of the pool…
We’re much more able to pass our gold on to other travelers when we distil our unique questions down to a compact, repeatable phrases. Please share with us the helpful, discerning question(s) you’ve used to ‘sharpen your saw’ and give critical guidance.
Desire more soul-strengthening fuel?:
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