The 3 O’s Objects - Obstacles Opportunities. What choice do we have?

Once upon a time, a shoe company sent two salesmen to Africa to assess the market and see how the company can expand its reach.

Upon doing a survey and research both the salesmen came back.

One put his hands up and said, ‘There is NO market there…no one wears shoes’

The other excitedly said, “There is a BIG market there…no one wears shoes’

While one came back with an Obstacle the other saw Opportunity in the same situation.

Objects like pens, books, furniture all exist in the world as physical entities. Anyone, will be able to see a book and call it a book but Obstacles and Opportunities do not exist in the real world. They only exist in how we Observe.

Often, just like the salesman, we look at events, people, work to be done and ‘see’ obstacles. But since an Obstacle exists only in the observer then that means an Opportunity can also exist in the same place. Startup owners, innovators, disruptive thinkers are all people who saw ‘opportunities’ where others saw ‘obstacles’.

Airbnb. Hotels saw the 2008 recession as a crisis. Three young founders saw spare rooms as an opportunity. Where others saw empty homes, they saw untapped hospitality. That mindset built a billion-dollar company.

Jeff Bezos – Amazon In 1994, most saw the internet as unstable and risky. Bezos saw a bookstore with no walls. While others feared going online, he built the first one-stop shop for readers. That small opportunity became the world’s largest marketplace.

The CTO Who Heard Silence as Feedback. His meetings were full of nods, but no dialogue. He realized silence wasn’t agreement — it was disengagement. He started asking questions instead of giving answers. The culture shifted from compliance to ownership.

A Project Manager who saw inefficiencies as feedback from the system, pointing toward better ways of working. She treated every delay as data, not drama. Progress became natural, not forced.

As leaders, it is important that we consciously go looking for opportunities. We need to develop a skill to go ‘listening for possibilities/opportunities’ ourselves. Then we will be able to help our teams to do so too.

It may happen that you sometimes feel there is no way out…remember that is ‘your’ way of looking at that moment, that does not mean there is no way out. Go listening for ‘opportunity’ with a fresh mind, involve others to give their views, request for help and you will see new doors open. What once looked like an obstacle begins to reveal new doors when you shift your observer, your world shifts with it.

Remember your Observer is a choice. What you choose to focus on can become an open door to possibilities or close door to new creation.

Some questions to reflect on –

1. What kind of conversations do I invite more often — those about what’s missing, or what’s possible?

2. When my team feels stuck, do I offer answers or create space for new perspectives to emerge?

3. How consciously do I “listen for opportunity” in everyday meetings and project reviews?

4. What might I notice if I paused and asked, “What am I not seeing yet?”