Opposing forces of tension help unlock new value

The intersection of talent and opportunity is where success lives.

If we can find a way to match our gifts with the world’s needs, then there will always be a place for us.

It’s basic supply and demand. There are things people need to survive, and there are things people desire to have. Both of which they may not be able to obtain on their own. In order to reach economic equilibrium, those gaps must be filled.

Now, theologians prophesize that the place god calls us to is the place where our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

But why drag the divine into this? Why not keep things at the human level? If it’s true that our greatest joy can satisfies the world’s greatest need, then that’s a skill we can practice on a daily basis with the people around us. No need to involve god. The guy is probably busy appearing in a tortilla somewhere in the southern hemisphere.

I first started thinking about this economic principle when I retired from entrepreneurship and started working for organizations. Whether I was working at a marketing agency, global tech startup, or small, private equity owned corporation, that intersection was always a potent source of value.

Anytime I could insert myself in between opposing forces of tension, something interesting always came out of it. There was no downside. Best case scenario, uncovered an exciting new opportunity that led to profitable results. Worst case scenario, I spent a few days working on a project that nobody cared about or used, but that still made me into a smarter, more skillful worker.

One employer of mine, a human resources company, used an internal software program that leveraged artificial intelligence to analyze phone calls. It was magic. The platform captured all of our team’s sales and customer service conversation. It analyzed trends and methods from top performers and helped create a training program for new hires. Anything anyone ever wanted to know about one of our customers, all we had to do was sift through the conversation library, and viola. Instant customer insight.

But my thought when using the call recording software was, wait a minute. This platform is like our own private search engine. It’s a marketing intelligence and sales enablement tool. And if my job is to write and publish content to help educate our customers, increase brand awareness, and ultimately grow revenues, then I can treat this software as my own personal virtual research assistant. Instead of guessing what problems our customers have, now I can literally hear every word they have ever said.

I’ve never done cocaine before, but I assume this is what it feels like.

Because my heart was pounding with a sense of possibility and excitement. I could have spent all day using that software. Every phone call that I sifted through was packed with insights, stories, data and perspectives that were invaluable to our company.

If you were in my position, what would you have done? How would you have leveraged that asset?

My end result was launching an internal insight library. I spent a week building a low tech database sorted by customer and industry and theme. Coworkers of mine were now able to search for thousands of juicy, bite sized, usable chunks of content.

Just the keepers, no fluff. All meat.

This content was perfect for emails, advertisements, presentations, reports and other projects. Nobody had to start from scratch anymore. Rather than doing the legwork of searching through all of our calls, they could simply use this handy index to get the insights they needed faster.

My colleagues were thrilled to have this resource. Not everyone used it, and not everyone cared. But the people who did, commented how much value they got, and how much fun they had, browsing this new insight library.

Talk about leverage. That’s economic equilibrium. The intersection of talent and opportunity.

And the good news is, this is a skill you can learn. Anyone can match their gifts with the world’s needs. It’s the combination of curiosity, empathy, initiative, discipline and generosity.

• The curiosity to deploy your wonderment in search of exploitable tension.
• The empathy to put yourself in someone else’s shoes.
• The initiative to start working on a task that nobody asked you for.
• The discipline to slog through mundane work and trust you’ll come out with value on the other side.
• And the generosity to tell your team, hey, I love you guys and I made this for you. Hope it’s helpful.

In my experience, all five of these traits can activate through possibility questions.

Here are my favorite ones.

*What annoying task that anybody could do, but nobody wants to do, that I am willing to do?

*What project would be useful to the team if someone could just get it across the finish line?

*Where is there gold just sitting around that needs to be dusted off and deployed for gainful utilization?

*Is there a meaningful but dreadful project that everybody has been avoiding because nobody has the time to prioritize labor intensive, repetitive and boring work?

*What is the backburner assignment that would add real value to the organization, if only somebody would take ownership and move it forward?

*What are people never going to do for themselves, but they will love that I did for them?

Now, that might seem like a lot at first blush. But it’s really just the same question asked different ways. The economic principle is the same.

Find the tension. Find the intersection of talent and opportunity, of gift and need, of gladness and hunger, of supply and demand. And execute accordingly.

Remember, needs are the things people require to survive, and wants are the things people desire to have.

Both are important, and people can’t always obtain them on their own.

If you can be the one to help others get it, there will always be a place for you.

What opposing forces of tension could you insert yourself in between to unlock new value?