Tuesday, June 8, 2010

“If anything can go wrong, it will” Murphy’s Law

Murphy’s Law is often quoted in life as well as in business. It implies the truism that seldom does everything turn out perfectly. All the planning in the world can’t prevent the unexpected from happening. We can’t control the unexpected. But we can control our attitude toward it. We can view situations negative or positive, as a problem that gets in the way of our business, or positively, as a chance to look at a situation and solve it creatively.

In the Chinese language, the symbol for the word problem translates into the word opportunity. In the view of many successful leaders, we have no problems, just opportunities for change. While we might quarrel with this outlook, the point is that as individuals we can approach most “problems” with a positive mindset and view them as challenges to be dealt with proactively. Identifying problems and solving them are important skills for people who are faced with dilemmas that require judgments every day. We must begin to ask ourselves why it’s important to use strategies that can be used to solve problems, and what can make your problem solving efforts more productive.