When George de Mestral came home from a walk one day to find his clothes and his dog covered with burrs, he didn’t just remove them: he examined them more closely to find out what was making them cling so tightly. And then he invented Velcro.
When Japanese engineers were building a railway through a mountain and discovered water flooding into the tunnel they didn’t simply seal the leaks. Instead they bottled the water, sold it as mineral water, and built a brand worth more than $50m/year.
When Travis Kalanick and a friend couldn’t get a taxi in Paris one day they didn’t just complain about it, they founded Uber. The rest, as we know, is history.
We’ve all been in situations like this. But we probably didn’t respond in the ways these people did.
And although these three examples might seem very different, they all share one thing in common: the attitude of the people involved. The attitude to look for ways to turn ‘problems’ into opportunities.
This is the key attitude that defines leadership.
And in a time of change it becomes more important than ever: an essential step to using change to become stronger and more valuable.
Are you currently facing any ‘problems’? What would happen if you could find the opportunities they represent?
Adapted from Inner Leadership: a framework and tools for building inspiration in times of change.
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Photo by gfpeck via StockPholio.com