Tag: question

If you’re stuck…

Whether you’re a dad, a store manager, a pastor, a small group leader, or a leader of any kind, if you’re stuck right now, my guess is that you’re asking the wrong questions.

Clouds_wire copy

image credit: CreationSwap user Boaz Crawford

If you want to get stuck in a rut with no sight of the sun, just keep asking the same questions over and over again. If you want to move forward, start asking different questions.

Instead of “who needs to be blamed here?” ask, “What can I do about it?”

Instead of “what can I do about it?” ask, “why?”

Instead of “why,” ask “why not?”

Instead of “why not,” ask, “Do I believe God can?” (Matthew 9:28)

Instead of asking whether you believe God can, ask “when?”

Instead of “when,” ask “now”?

Instead of “now,” ask “why am I scared”? (Matthew 8:26)

Instead of asking why you’re scared, ask, “Me?” (Isaiah 6:8)

Instead of “Me”, ask “who else”?

Instead of “who else,” ask “who can I serve?”

Instead of asking who you can serve, ask, “What needs to be tweaked?”

Instead of asking what needs to be tweaked, ask, “What needs to be done away with?

Instead of asking what needs to be done away with, ask “What if we had no resources?”

Instead of asking what you’d do if you had no resources, ask, “Am I being faithful with the little things in front of me?” (Luke 16:10)

Instead of asking if you’re being faithful, ask, “What would happen if we compiled every resource available to pull this off?”

Instead of that, ask, “Is this important enough to put significant financial, emotional, spiritual, and physical resources into?”

If it’s not, then stop what you’re doing. You’re asking the wrong question completely. Here’s where you need to start:

“What should I spend my life doing?”

You have a tweak on a traditional question we should be chewing on?

 

 

The best evaluation question to ask

If you’re a leader, you evaluate.

Well…ahem…let me rephrase that.

If you’re a good leader, you evaluate.  And there are plenty of activities, events, and procedures that you can and should evaluate regularly

  • Trainings
  • Meetings
  • Outings
  • New hires
  • New fires
  • System changes
  • New initiatives
  • Outreach events
  • Sermon series
  • New ideas
  • Old ideas
  • Development days
  • Financial spending
  • Outputs

…and that’s just to name a few.

Evaluation should happen across the board on a consistent basis.  Here are the two questions I hear asked most often:

1. What worked?

2. What didn’t work?

They’re not bad questions.  And, hopefully, changes will be made based on the answers to those questions.  But more often than not, the ball stops rolling.  Those two questions are momentum killers.  Because most people can quickly tell you what worked.  And what didn’t work?  Well, let’s find someone or something to blame. OR let’s spin our wheels feeling sorry for ourselves and the money and time we wasted. *insert screeching brakes sound*

Here’s a better question:

What did you learn?

I know that seems like a subtle shift, but I think it’s an important one.  Instead of just blindly evaluating what worked and what didn’t…and instead of just throwing your opinion into the ring of ideas as to who or what the culprit is for the flopping of an event, this keeps the ball moving forward.

It keeps you focused on the positives and the negatives. It helps you see that, even within the parts of an event that worked, there are things that you learned.  And those things that you learned can help improve for next time.  It also helps you really zone in on what you learned from the side of an idea that flopped.  Instead of wallowing in your fail whale, you focus on what you can learn.

My pastor, Ron Edmondson, and I sat down after a leadership training event to evaluate.  Let me be honest: it was an event that flopped.  We had very little participation, very little feedback, very little growth because of the event, and to top it all off…it was expensive.

When we evaluated, we jumped right into the question: What did you learn? I had learned plenty.  This question helped get the momentum moving in the right direction after progress had screeched to a halt.

Any initiative can improve if you’re willing to learn.  Even the best ones.

Any failure can be a step forward if you learn from your missteps.

The question for you is this:

Are you willing to learn?

Have you learned from a flopped idea?

 

 

Two leadership questions for you

If you quit leading (your organization, your small group, your church, your home, your business) today, would those you lead be able to immediately pick up where you left off?

If not, how can you lead them to the place where they are capable of continuing on in your absence?

“…you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14)

“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” (2 Timothy 2:2)

 

© 2024

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑