Problem or Opportunity?

Is it a problem or an opportunity that you are working on? What you call it may matter more than we might think.

I used to be of the opinion that opportunities are really a more optimistic name for problems; that essentially problems and opportunities are the same. An optimist will call opportunity what a pessimist calls a problem. However, from my involvement in a variety of innovation efforts (each full of problems and opportunities) over the past 25 years, I am becoming less sure of the inherent similarities. The differences are more interesting—differences that may be more than semantic.  Opportunities and problems differ in logic, feel and form.

Just as questions beg answers, so problems logically lead one to search for solutions. There is an inexorable linguistic logic that appears to link answers to questions and solutions to problems. We cannot quite say the same for opportunities. The phrase “problem-solving” makes sense. The phrase “opportunity-_______” doesn’t have same cadence. We don't really “solve” opportunities. Opportunities seem to have a different (less direct and linear) logic all their own. Nor is it quite sufficient to say we discover opportunities. Discovery—as important as and necessary as that is—is not the end of the logic when it comes to opportunities. It is just the beginning. Development comes next. Think of Thomas Edison's 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. [Could Edison have just as well said 1% opportunity-discovery and 99% problem-solving?] Suffice it to say that problems lead to solving, where as opportunities “emerge'”(a word I am not entirely satisfied with either!) and do not necessarily lead to a solution. Instead, they may lead to more learning, discovery activities, development or even problem identification and definition efforts. Opportunities have an inherently different logic.  

Opportunities also “feel” different. Many problem-solvers seek and find comfort from the problem-to-solution logic particularly when they are under the pressure of deadlines. Calling it a “problem” seems to help us know what to do and how to think next. It helps with the orientation and perspective. This is emotionally reassuring, not to mention enabling for the problem-solving process. Opportunities, however, do not necessarily bring with them the same clarity or immediate reassurance of what to do next. Should we first learn more, before we start developing an approach to exploiting the opportunity? Or should we jump right in, believing that by jumping in we can learn more, better and faster than watching from the sidelines or just dipping our toe into the water?  Opportunities feel less certain, but perhaps more exciting? However you might describe it, opportunities have a different feel. They are more contextual, perhaps.

Opportunities also have a different “form.” A problem—once understood and defined—tends to suggest one best solution, or at least the direction in which the solution is believed to reside. The way the problem is defined or formed often forecasts where the problem definers believe there may be a solution. This is one reason why it's appropriate and necessary to have those solving the problem also engaged in its definition. (There is danger here for the innovator. When a problem looks too much like the solution, we may not have anything novel, much less a sustainable solution at all.)

Opportunities, on the other hand, may have many different discovery and development paths. Unlike root cause analysis, for example, opportunities do not easily lend themselves to definition or analysis. They are more receptive to interpretation and direct experience—sometimes we call it 'immersion' (the allusion to baptism is probably intended, if not useful). We analyze and define problems, where as we discover, are attracted to, and interpret opportunities. Opportunities seem to have a different form.

So, it just may be worth asking ourselves if the "problem" we are working on is really an opportunity in disguise?  If so, we might approach it differently. As Piore and Lester make the case in their recent book Innovation: the Missing Dimension, we need to bring interpretive skills to the so-called "front ends" of our innovation efforts, leaving the necessary analytical skills for later.

Finally, there may be a practical reason for drawing a clearer line between problems and opportunities, especially for those of us interested in innovation. When a small group or individual moves from [what W.J.J. Gordon first described as] the “problem-as-given” to “the problem-as-understood,” there is a recognition of the opportunity in the problem; and with opportunity (more than with problems) comes freshness, novelty, hope and renewed energy to face whatever is demanded by this problem-opportunity set. Inventors and innovators alike are engaged with both problems and opportunities. But it is more from opportunities we seem to find the novelty, energy and hope to keep innovating against the odds.

This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in November 2005. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 460-1313.