Obstacles our new, best friend

May 17th, 2010

In January, I sent out cards to current and past clients, encouraging them to see the opportunities beyond the obstacles. The possibilities, numerous and varied, are there if we choose to look.

Obstacles are most often tagged as matters that hinder or create difficulties. Interfering and interrupting, they are seen as a nuisance. Sometimes it’s nothing serious, just an annoyance to be shooed away as if it were a bothersome fly. That’s the glass half-full perspective.

Half-empty looks different. It’s worse. Obstacles become monstrous. They’re our deepest fears, come to stare us in the face of our weakest vulnerabilities. They penetrate our resolve. And we, we succumb.

Now, if we tilt our heads a bit and cock our attitudes we’ll realize there’s yet another perspective. What if we didn’t dread obstacles, rather we marveled in what they offered. Clearly they communicate if we stay the current course without some adjustment, we’re doomed. So why not welcome their lead.

These kinds of shifts are happening all the time; think about it. Experienced, white guys have been joined at the top of corporate ladders by the young, the female, the ethnic, the non-conformist and the globally-connected.

Commuting to the office to talk to others on the phone is frowned upon as not green. No office and virtual workers are more common place.

The mobile phone is replacing PCs as the main connection to the internet, among other uses. Half the Top 10 best selling novels in Japan were written on mobile phones.

The old adage of never give anything away for free has given way to a global free-for-all. Open source, shared templates along with co-creating have been embraced as lucrative business models. Even IBM came around to participating in open source software.

At the root of all of these shifts is a different view. Someone either didn’t see, or saw past and through, the rules, limitations and problems. From their perspective rose the alternatives and some new directions.

Traveling these new paths, the point of departure is often forgotten. The focus is ahead. The unexpected, the once unknown, and the never-before-imagined are along the way. Arrival is in a new place, until, again, seeing goes beyond.

From this vantage point, I’d say, obstacles are among our new, best friends.

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