Five opportunities that exist in any situation

A hand, with 5 fingers

We’ve seen that problems contain opportunities. And we know that finding these opportunities will bring us more of the inspiration that matters so much in this time of change

We know that simply looking for these opportunities will be useful — and we’ve seen some examples.

So the next question we need to answer is, what kinds of opportunities should we be looking for? 

It turns out there are five types.

The first two options are to ignore the problem or to walk away from the situation entirely. These might seem like obvious answers but how often do we jump in and start to solve an issue without first asking ourselves whether it is worth fixing? How often do we spend time and effort on issues that would have been better ignored or that have distracted us from our main priorities?

1. Sometimes ignoring a problem will be appropriate, simply because we have limited resources and other priorities that matter more. Sometimes taking no action will send an important message to employees, suppliers, customers, or other stakeholders. Sometimes doing nothing is appropriate so that other people will step up to their responsibilities. And in some situations the best we can manage is to choose which problem we want to live with.

2. Sometimes it makes sense to walk away from a situation and focus our energies elsewhere. The new situation will not be perfect either — issues will still arise. But handling them might teach us more, reward us better, or enable us to create more of the outcomes we care most about.

Whenever we face a new issue our first question should always be “Is this important enough to do something about? Does it matter, is it a priority for me?”

If we decide that it is important to take action then there are three more types of outcome we might try to create:

3. One is simply to fix the problem. This means resolving the issue and restoring the situation back to the way it was before.
For a business this means getting the organisation out of the ditch and back on the same track. Standard ways of achieving this are by increasing quality or reliability, cutting costs, and raising prices.

4. Another opportunity is to address the issue in a way that improves the situation over how it was before.
This response gets the organisation out of the ditch and points it in a better direction. Corporate turnarounds, takeovers, diversifications, and strategic repositionings can involve this kind of response.

5. And a final response is to take the steps that would have prevented the problem from arising in the first place — and will prevent it from happening again. This is called resolving or transforming the situation.
As Sun Tzu said, “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” The greatest general is the one who defeats the enemy without fighting.
As an example, this option would mean that instead of fixing the broken heating or air conditioning system, or improving the situation by carrying out preventative maintenance, we transform the situation by constructing buildings that do not need a heating or air conditioning system

Here’s another example of these three types of outcome. Occupancy rates have traditionally been an important strategic issue in the hotel, airline, and taxi industries. Here, advertising and promotions are simple solutions that provide a short-term Fix to increase the number of customers and improve occupancy. Another solution might be to reposition the business to focus either on budget or luxury segments: this could Improve occupancy by focusing the organisation around a new and better direction or group of customers. And by choosing not to own any hotels or taxis, AirBnb and Uber have followed the Resolve or Transform approach: they no longer need to worry about occupancy rates. They have outsourced that risk to other people.

By looking carefully for possibilities under these five categories you will expand your range of options — and you might find several options under each category. This will improve your morale. It will give you confidence that you have considered every possibility. And it might even show you a better way forward than you had thought of before.

Then, when you choose your best way forward, you will have taken two more steps towards becoming antifragile.

Are you facing any ‘problems’ today? Have you looked for any of the five kinds of opportunities they might contain? How many options of each type can you find?


Adapted from Inner Leadership: a framework and tools for building inspiration in times of change.

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Photo By Alan Levine via StockPholio.net

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