Accepting Problems

Remember these lines - "Houston, We've Had a Problem". 

These famous lines were said by the astronauts abroad Apollo 13 - who, on their way to the moon, faced one adversary after another.  

With their life at stakes, they accepted there were serious problems in the space ship. With help from people on the Earth, a unified team worked strongly over the next seven days after the problem was reported - to bring the team back to earth, successfully saving their lives.

This has gone down in history as one of the best examples of solving critical, life threatening problems.

Moving on to Commonwealth Games 2010.

The Commonwealth Games 2010 are just a week away. Being hosted in New Delhi, India - they will be conducted over a period of 12 days - from 3rd October to 14th October.

As you might be aware, the Games have been embroidered with controversies. 

The sports infrastructure is not upto the mark. The city is not considered to be ready for the Games. The Games Village is considered to be in inhabitable conditions. 

All of this just 7 days before the games. This is when the finishing touches should have already being put - so that you can sit back and reflect on your effort over the past many years.

But that is not the case. We are struggling to put together an acceptable infrastructure for the Games. And that would be the case till the D-Day.

72 countries from across the World will be participating in the event. But just a few days back, some of the major Commonwealth nations threated to pull out of the Games - citing poor security, bad habitation conditions, inadequate sporting infrastructure as the reasons.

But as always, the officials continued to be in a state of denial. They refused to accept there was any problem.

The Games Organizing Committee (OC) secretary general Lalit Bhanot shamed India with his poor comments. 

“These rooms are clean to both you and us. However, it may not appear so to some others. They want certain standards in hygiene and cleanliness which may differ from our perception,” commented the high profile sports administrator. 

This attitude was well summarised by Dave Currie, who is the New Zealand's Chief of Mission.

"We’ve lost faith in the OC. They were in complete denial. It’s very hard to work with someone if they don’t admit there is a problem", Dave commented.

This brings us to the most crucial point of any activity execution - Problem Acceptance.

Accepting Problems is one of the most fundamental and important points during execution of any activity.

Not all activities can be executed without any hitches and glitches. There are bound to be some road blocks. There are ought to be some challenges.

But then you need to overcome these problems. You need to climb over these barricades.

And you can do so only if you accept that there is a problem. 

If you play blind to such problems, all that you will end up doing is keep running into them. 

But then again, you need to be a jumbo to throw aside such problems with your sheer weight. In most cases, you don't have the strength to cast them aside - and you end up falling right in front of them.

And in an activity which is being executed by a group of people, all of whom have a stake in its successful execution,  it is very important that all the people have an unified opinion of the issue at hand. 

This may not be the case at the beginning when the problem surfaces. But effort should be to bring about a united opinion - so that steps can be taken towards resolution of the problem.

Otherwise, we would end up in a situation like the Games, where one party looks for a resolution - and the other simply refuses to accept the problem. 

Net result - Increased frustration for the person or group who accepts the problem. And poor showcasing of the activity which is being executed.

This is well illustrated by a few quotes - like the ones below.

“You won't find a solution by saying there is no problem”
~ William Rotsler

“No problem is too big to run away from.”
~  Charles M. Schulz

“If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem”
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti  

So next time guys, if there is a problem - be ready to accept it. And if you are working in a group, bring about an acceptance in the group about the problem at hand.  And then put all your skills, knowledge, efforts, energy et all  to bring about the resolution of the problem. 

The rest can be left to God Almighty!!