Yesterday, thanks to my publisher, I had the pleasure of being in a public conversation about "The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World" with Dorie Clark, the author, and a few other fascinating people.
The idea of "questions as a strategy" came up when Clark shared the importance of pausing along our journey to achieve our goals and check if we are going in a meaningful direction. Meaningful for us.
In a world that is changing so quickly, it's hard to make detailed plans about our way forward. The scenarios in which we operate can change abruptly and unexpectedly at any time. So, the challenge is to keep moving towards a long-game objective while staying open to the evolution of things around you.
One idea is to include a small set of questions as part of our strategy to move forward as individuals or organizations. Questions that we can ask ourselves regularly to be sure we keep the long-game mindset while we deal with the uncertainty of the daily grind. We don't even need a complete and defined answer to those questions.
It is less about "figuring it out" and more about getting into a state of wonder, as Jim Dethmer writes in "The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership".
Wonder questions are open-ended questions that have no "right" answer.
Wonder questions go beyond our current knowing, our past experience, and our current paradigms.
As such, they keep us in the long game while we go through the present challenges of life and work.