http://kentblumberg.typepad.com/kent_blumberg/2006/09/focus_onstrengt.html

Focus on…Strengths and Success

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Drucker wrote that we tend to get pushed into focusing on problems, and distracted from the positive opportunities that were there for the taking.

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Well, I don’t necessarily agree with him on that.

I like to use my “patented” Power of Negative Thinking, with apologies to Norman Vincent Peale. “Problems” deserve a special laser-like focus. At least four times in the last year, I have seen small problems that were really precursors to big problems. If there had been a true “autopsy” on that small problem, then it would have exposed the potential for a “big hairy one”. But, the small problem was dismissed, (over my objections), as a “fluke”, “isolate incident”, “network blip”, or “who cares because we’re done”. Now don’t misunderstand, not only did I not say “see told ya so”, but it not an academic inquiry into “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”. It’s is about, at least in my IT world, stuff happens for a reason. And, that reason usually portends, when neglected, a big alligator arising from the swamp to take a big bite out of your butt when you least expect it and have the least ability to deal with it. Then, your left with the coulda, shoulda, and woulda, usually in front of people you’d rather not spend time in front of.

It’s nice to be positive, but, imho, you need to take care of the negatives. Or at least get far enough away from the swamp, so that when the alligators come home to roost, (yeah yeah it’s chickens!) they don’t roost, or feast, on you.

Problems are opportunities, in disguise, to avoid bigger problems.

At least they are in my world.