5 Questions You Should Be Asking When Choosing a Small Group Model
I’ve written a number of articles about how to choose a small group model, system or strategy. After all, choosing a small group model is serious business. You want to do it right. Remembering that “your ministry is perfectly designed to give you the results you are currently experiencing1,” you can be sure that your choice of model will determine results (both positive and negative). That said, the choice of model is a stewardship with which we may have been entrusted (see also, Matthew 25:14-30) and for which we may be held accountable.
Serious business. Consequences. Not to be taken lightly.
Peter Drucker famously pointed out that “The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong question2.” So it is that we should be very interested in determining the questions we should be asking when choosing a small group model.
5 Questions You Should Be Asking:
1. What’s the best way to…? I picked this up recently from Andy Stanley. Works great when you’re stuck with legacy solution that just isn’t working very well any more (from Andy Stanley’s Leadership Podcast, Introducing Change).
2. How might we…? I got this one from Tim Brown, CEO and President of IDEO (from The Secret Phrase Top Innovators Use).
3. What would have to be true for that approach to work? Or, “for the idea on the table to be a fantastic option?” I love these two questions from Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management (p. 12, The Design of Business).
4. What are we not doing that we should start doing right away? What should we immediately stop doing in order to allow for the emergence of the new? Bill Taylor, a co-founder of Fast Company, is a great source of ideas like this. (p. 123, Practically Radical)
5. What 21st-century challenges are testing the design limits of our ______ strategy? Also, What are the limitations of our model that have failed to keep up with the times? Gary Hamel has been called “the world’s leading expert on business strategy.” (from The Future of Management)
1Andy Stanley
2The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker
Image by Steve Snodgrass
