I had the fortune of meeting a Managing Director [MD] of a large group of companies many years ago and about a year ago, over a dinner he was sharing some of the challenges faced by his organizations. Since organizational challenges excites me and gets my creative juices flowing I guided him with some initial steps to over come them.

Later on he had requested me for a proposal to carry out a culture transformation in his organization. After having given the proposal we were not able to formalize an assignment as various challenges were coming our way.

Firstly he wanted to hire an experienced CEO for the organization and that took time. However I continue to guide him and was also giving him guidance in the process. Later on once the new CEO was hired, he had his own viewpoints about bringing in an external consultant and our assignment further delayed.

Rather than taking this as an obstacle, I continue to guide the MD in getting the best of the new CEO. He also wanted help in hiring a good Human Resource [HR] manager and here too I helped him design the role and hire the right HR manager.

A few months later the MD was in touch with me and mentioned the CEO was performing far below expectations and he said he regretted the decision. Here again I started guiding him with some solutions to overcome the situation. A few weeks later I was informed that he had to part ways with the CEO under certain unpleasant circumstances.

I then guided him in restructuring the organization; take the learning’s from the experience and to hire a high quality CEO.

We had not yet formalized an assignment but that did not bother me as my purpose is to help others grow and I enjoy doing it. I also consider the obstacles that were on our way only opportunities for growth. This kept me going.

A few weeks ago we finalized the assignment and started guiding the organization in a formal manner.

My takeaways from this are that it is important to consider all obstacles as opportunities to grow. The obstacles I had during the process helped me in learning so much about people and organization cultures. It helped me to learn patience. It helped me to practice unconditional giving. Since I accepted them positively and started learning from them and continued to be available to the MD of this company, I was finally rewarded with a valuable assignment.

Obstacles are good. Obstacles help us grow, Obstacle are our friends. Love them! Hug them!