“The effective business focuses on opportunities rather than problems” ~ Peter Drucker. Great advice from a respected voice in the business world. Drucker’s words remind me of a guy I used to work with years ago. His previous employer would fly him around the globe to fix their biggest problems. Sounded pretty cool back then, almost rock star-ish. But over time, that singular strategy made less and less sense to me. I began to wonder: why wouldn’t they use his immense talent—at least some of the time—to maximize their biggest opportunities?

Drucker’s words make sense not only for business, but for the Church as well. It’s easy for ministry leaders to get stuck trying to fix everything that’s broken. Of course it’s good to be aware of your challenges.  Organizational denial is unhealthy. You can’t sweep problems under the rug and simply hope they go away. And depending on the particular season your church is in, you may be dealing with more issues today than normal.

But here’s the truth: Being more problem-focused than opportunity focused long-term is a recipe for failure. Keeping your eyes fixed on opportunity, even in the middle of difficulties, is a better strategy. A boatload of dynamic benefits emerge when we shift our attention to opportunity… here are three:

Energy

Opportunity gets me fired up. When I focus on possibilities, on new doors opening up, on the expansion of our ability to help leaders… creativity flows. Ideas emerge. Encouragement rises. My team rallies and momentum builds. I don’t have to hype up the team; the prospect of those possibilities becoming reality produces motivation. If you or your team has low energy, maybe you need to ask yourself: “Am I focusing more on problems than on opportunity? Try shifting your emphasis for a month and see what happens. It might fire you up.

Effectiveness

Focusing more on opportunity and less on problems aligns resources: people, time, energy, and money. Al Ries in his book: Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It, observes: “A laser is (actually) a weak source of energy. A laser takes (only) a few watts of energy and focuses them in a coherent stream of light. But with a laser, you can cut a hole in diamond.” If we regularly dwell on problems at the expense of opportunities, we’re probably misallocating resources at some level. For sure we lose effectiveness. What would happen if we dedicated more resources toward our biggest opportunities? We might get fired up.

Emotional health

If our leadership default is biased toward problems, it acts like a pin prick in our emotional balloon. Slowly but surely, the balloon deflates, almost unnoticed, until it becomes so deformed we can’t help noticing. Leaders who are more in touch with what’s wrong organizationally than what’s right tend to be depressed and negative. Those who give time to opportunity tend to be happier and healthier. They often get fired up.

Who of us reading this blog couldn’t use more energy? Effectiveness? Emotional health? What a leader focuses on moves his church (or company) in that same direction. By all means, address the challenges but don’t fixate on them. Increase the amount of time you spend on opportunity. Put more resources… money, energy, and people… on activities that move your organization forward. I suspect your energy level will rise, your effectiveness will grow, and your emotions will flourish.

You’ll probably get fired up.