What to do when faced with a problem or opportunity

If you are managing to make it through your career to date without facing a problem, you're not lucky, you're just either irrelevant or not making any decisions.

If you've never faced an opportunity, I am surprised but then maybe you're just not looking hard enough.

99.9% of us have faced both. This is my rule of thumb for those moments.

When faced with a problem - 'catch & release'

When faced with an opportunity - 'grab & hold'

What do I mean?

Catch & Release - problems usually show themselves to us, or come to us from somewhere 'else'. It's rare that a problem is entirely of our own creation. With this in mind, you're receiving the problem, it's coming. Catch it. Catching is passive but important. Step one, own the problem. You caught it, show it to 'the crowd' if you wish like a cricketer or baseball player.

Next, plan/prepare to release. That problem MUST go somewhere. Either you solve it and it's released to the pile of 'jobs done', you cannot solve it (find someone who can and 'throw' it their way), or it's something that isn't that big a deal and will be resolved over time, just release it. That last part is important as it speaks to the action of moving on, but also the mental part of letting go.

I have been guilty of rumination of problems and learned, over time, that it's wasted energy. One example was an instance where I was delivering a business case following an acquisition - I felt we had made a mistake as a business in the positioning of the acquisition (and expectations) and I shared this, whilst offering what I felt we could do to mitigate this. What I had not fully considered was that there were people in that audience who'd been part of/lead the acquisition and, well, no one likes to be called out on a mistake like this (and it was a mistake). I should have pre-wired a few people to garner support ahead of sharing my views. I received very negative feedback, some of it fair,all of it valuable, but that sat with me for way too long - fairness is one of my values and it hurt. I should have taken it, learned from it and moved on. Catch. Release.

Grab & Hold - with opportunities lies much more fun and it's important to recognise it when it happens. The act of 'grabbing' is proactive (as opposed to catching). Some opportunities appear in your peripheral vision - you have to reach for them. Many years ago, I was offered a 'chance' of a role that involved moving overseas. There was very little detail at the time, certainly never enough to be fully certain that it was the right move for me and my family. We grabbed it. When I say we, that was a partnership with my wife who, at the time, was enjoying a successful career (which she'd have to change) and was expecting our second child. We reached a little further than we were comfortable and brought it into our ownership.

Then we held it, we made it work for us.

Holding is something you treasure, it's personal. Opportunities evolve to become 'business as usual' or, in some instances, problems. If it's the former you hold (for the latter, treat as a decision tree and refer back to catch & release). Nurturing opportunities, practicing gratitude and building more opportunities from them is important in your career. Some people plan ahead, others take opportunities as they come - I have done a mix of both and neither is better than the other.

In summary - as soon as you recognise you're faced with either a problem or an opportunity, think of this model, see if it works for you.