Opportunities, not problems

I’m as cynical as the next guy over corporate-speak, and have done my share of mocking the concept of “We don’t have problems, we have opportunities.” But that’s largely because in most cases I’ve ever heard that phrase used it’s without any further explanation, as if it’s self-evident, and with no actual change in corporate culture to indicate the phrase means anything at all.

But when put this way, it’s actually hard to by cynical.

Everything was riding on that robot. When the test bombed, I was devastated. But while I moped about, Eric immediately started looking for solutions. He pulled the brushless motors off. “Must be a short here somewhere,” he said. He was right—and he went on to develop a new process for waterproofing the motors. That was good engineering, but for me the breakthrough was Eric’s approach to the situation. Where I saw defeat, he saw a chance to learn something new.

The fact that there is a problem doesn’t mitigate or magically transform the fact that you indeed have a problem that causes other problems. But there is also a chance to learn, to innovate, to move things in a better direction. If I were to reword the catch-phrase to be a little more meaningful and less trite (note I’m not saying “make it cynicism-proof”), I’d change it to say, “Yes, we have a problem, but we also have an opportunity.”

Looking back, many problems in my life have also provided opportunities that led to something better because I learned something from overcoming the problem. That didn’t make the problem any more fun to deal with at the time, but in the long term many of those problems fade in comparison to the benefits that came from learning to solve that problem.

Don’t get me wrong–I hate problems. I’d rather get things right the first time. But if there must be problems, I may as well learn from them.