Finding Answers

Here I sit. At a keyboard. The same keyboard layout I learned in high school (10^th grade?). Through the years I became a whiz on the typewriter. As those machines became electrified and then digitalized and finally computerized, I learned to compose at the keyboard. One word after the other. Then whole sentences, finally entire paragraphs.

Whole thoughts with leaps of logic that propelled the ideas forward faster than I could type. This still happens. Leaves me in the dust! Sometimes I sit scratching my head wondering where I was going with an idea and realized I am literally in the dust. No where. Alone with partial ideas and the thread of the longer view has been lost. Only a trajectory left.

Well, one day I might find that thread and complete the thought…

Who knows? It might have been the secret to world peace, or a cancer cure (not likely), or the missing link for universal happiness.  Oh well; I’ll just have to get back to that another time.

Finding answers. It begins with realizing we don’t know a critical ‘something’ and begin to look for it. Asking the questions is part of the process. Asking the right questions is the key to success. In my decades of consulting and organizational development I've learned that the answers are nowhere as important as forming the right questions.

It begins with the simple formula: what do I not know? What are the critical elements missing? Can I even define them? What do I need to know? Where might I find them? When I find answers how do I know they are satisfying what I set out to find?

This is the basic research process. What is the hypothesis? What is the goal? What is the process? How do I know when I've reached the goal?

Without the process we might keep searching endlessly while all along the answer was right there in front of our face.

The biggest mysteries still require basic logic and process to solve. The solutions are usually quite simple with hindsight. What we were looking for was right under my nose all the time!

Winnowing out the possibilities is part of the process, of course; and that takes time but the final answer usually pops out and proves our case suddenly. The process gave it up. It  just takes our discipline to keep at it doggedly until the elements fall into place.

For now we need to identify the problem in need of solution. There are so many to choose among. And there are many teams of people and institutions (and industries!) seeking solutions to many problems already. What can I possibly focus on? What is my task to embrace?

My experience tells me it is me!  What I don’t know at any given time are the dimensions of what I am capable of doing, of accomplishing. One thing I know for certain is I need the collaboration of many other people to accomplish much of anything. So it is imperative that I map my own capabilities realistically first, then seek help, and demonstrate my trust and faith in others to build a good team of collaborators. That process alone magnifies the capabilities of each of us and all of us all at the same time.

Being role models to others helps the others. And myself. At the same moment. It is a means of parenthood, teaching, research, ministry, and diplomacy, to name a few but potent examples. Who and what we are is demonstrated by how we interact with others and what we do in tasks. We teach by doing and being. It’s up to the others to discern the lessons and acquire their own skills.

Completing that circle of logic is an answer. But the question? That is what is begged. Always!

September 29, 2014