7 Powerful Questions to Foster a Culture of Discernment
Discernment means “the ability to judge well”.
Keen discernment is like perceptiveness on steroids, being acutely insightful and wise, able to make good decisions.
Now imagine an organization’s culture that fosters discernment as a core value.
Everyone involved with the organization would be perceptive, insightful and able to make good decisions. They would innately understand where they should be applying their energies and time to make the greatest impact for the organization.
It would be an organization filled with a lot of smart people – who can also work well together. Sound like an oxymoron?
Not at all.
This can occur when every person on a team has as a solid understanding of the organization’s mission and vision, goals and objectives, and then be clear on their specific role and how it fits into the larger picture.
And it starts with everyone asking the right questions.
7 Powerful Questions
To foster a culture of discernment, every employee, team member, manager, executive, volunteer and contributor should be encouraged to ask themselves the following questions, on a regular basis:
- What’s going well right now?
- What’s not going well right now?
- What are you enjoying right now?
- What are you not enjoying right now?
- If you could change just one thing, what would it be?
- If you could improve just one thing, what would it be?
- What is your top priority where you can make the greatest impact for the organization leveraging your personal strengths?
If these questions sound familiar, it’s because they are incorporated into many employee performance reviews, which sadly are conducted only once a year – when employees wait to find out if they are going to get a raise.
What a waste of great questions.
When everyone learns to ask these questions on a regular basis – at least monthly, and ideally weekly or even daily – then the organization as a whole becomes smarter and makes better decisions.
When is the last time you asked yourself these 7 questions?
