Stage Two: Questions
You’ve admitted your disappointment. You’ve laid out your frustrations before God, inviting the supernatural involvement of His Spirit. Now you’ve got to follow up your reflections with questions.
Personally, I start listing every question associated with my disappointment that comes to my mind, indiscriminately, as quickly as I can scribble them down. It’s rapid and it’s random. But I can’t get the right answers until I identify the right questions.
I’ll use a hypothetical example: suppose we brainstormed a big promotional element at Elevation and the execution didn’t meet my standard. After I talked it out with a few people, I’d start writing down every question I needed to find an answer to. Stuff like:
-Who was on point for this? Who dropped the ball?
-Have they taken responsibility for it? Or are they making excuses?
-Was I clear about what I wanted? What part did I play in the failure?
(Leaders, we always play some part. Probably a bigger one than we think.)
-What broken system caused this? What’s our plan to fix it? What’s our timeline?
These could go on and on, and can get much more detailed than this according to the nature of the disappointment.
Some questions may have immediate answers. Others may take time to get to the bottom of. And some may have no answer at all…for now.
When Elevation first started, I had to go track down all the answers to these questions myself. Now, I primarily work through a couple of key people to investigate the answers for me, and bring me back their conclusions.
Questions are the vehicle to transport your disappointment out of the realm of regret…into the realm of potential and progress.