Do You Have A Healthy Relationship With Opportunity?

Opportunity.

It's one of a handful of words which on its own can inspire hope and the sense that we might be one step closer to reaching those personal goals we set out for ourselves.

Opportunities also serve as the driving force that pushes organizations into pursuing new territory, in the hopes of discovering potential new markets for their products/services to boost stagnant or declining revenue shares.

It's no doubt the reason why we find it so hard to say "No" to new opportunities because of the inherent belief that any opportunity which crosses our path is an open door leading us one step closer to our objectives.

Although we spend so much time talking about seeking opportunities, we rarely consider the importance or value of the quality of the opportunities we're offered. That's why most of us approach opportunities from the vantage point of "if we don't accept it or if we pass this up, what will we lose?"

Perhaps a better question we should ask ourselves when such opportunities arise is "what will we gain through accepting this in terms of reaching our goals?" Other equally important questions we should begin asking are "what future opportunities could we miss out on because we committed our resources to this process?" and "is this the most direct route to where we want to go?"

Making the effort in shifting our attitude from simply seeking opportunities to evaluating what we'd gain from pursuing that option is especially important for organizations, which are currently grappling with growing concerns over losing their key talent as the global economy improves and opportunities for their employees being to appear elsewhere.

While organizations should consider measures that will prevent the loss of their top talent, leaders must also reconcile the reality of balancing opportunities which best serve their employees, and those which best serve their organization as a whole. After all, whether we're talking about an individual or an organization, we all want to achieve something. And so the question becomes how do these opportunities help us to accomplish what we've set out to attain?

The other thing we need to be aware of is that true opportunities are those which address head-on some of the obstacles which lie directly in the path of our goals. As such, leaders need to ensure that they understand what obstacles stand in the way of their employees' professional goals so that they can provide them with opportunities of real value. Simply claiming that a new position or approach is an "opportunity" doesn't make it so, especially if it veers us off on a tangent and not directly towards the goal we set out to reach.

Perhaps Thomas Edison said it best when it comes to understanding the true nature of opportunity:

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

If the economic forecasters are right, a period of growth and new possibilities lies ahead for many organizations. The only question that remains is if those opportunities will be the best ones to help us achieve our goals – whether they be personal ones or those we have for our organization.

Thanks to Tanveer Naseer.