Opportunity Zone SWOT Method: A Practical Assessment Guide

In What is a SWOT Analysis? and SWOT Evaluation Guide: How to Assess SWOT Results posts, I tried to cover the fundamentals of SWOT. In this post, I'll explain a method I developed myself, which I call the Opportunity Zone.

Before we start, it's important to acknowledge that personal growth and development are a journey, not something you can achieve with a magic wand. The method I'm describing might have worked for me and my colleagues by chance or because it touched on the right points. However, I can't guarantee it will work for you. If it doesn't, I welcome all feedback, criticism, and suggestions. But if it does, all I ask is that you share the method.

Why a New SWOT Assessment Method Is Needed

While managing, I tried to get to know my colleagues, show them different approaches, and gain more detailed information about themselves. SWOT analysis was one of the tools I used in these efforts.

As an application, I would explain the SWOT analysis to my colleague, give them questions to answer, and ask them to be ready for the next session. In the subsequent session, I'd explain the classic assessment method and use a heading from their own SWOT analysis to create action items to help them understand it better. This way, I aimed to combine practical and theoretical transfer in a single flow.

However, my expectations didn't quite match reality. After explaining the classic assessment, I saw that some of my colleagues were confused, and others felt stuck.

This led me to want to update the classic method, but once I started, I couldn't stop and developed the method I'm about to describe.

What is the Opportunity Zone Method?

I named this method the Opportunity Zone because it develops an approach that connects every heading within SWOT to a potential opportunity. In other words, this method shifts SWOT into a more action-oriented and practical framework.

When an opportunity arises, I know that I'm growing or moving forward by overcoming inertia. Therefore, I started experimenting with the idea that this approach might work for others as well, since it worked for me. To explain the method, I need to share some concepts or assumptions according to my perspective. But I'll do so within the SWOT headings.

Opportunities: Moving SWOT to the Opportunity Zone

Recalling the definition I gave in the classic assessment; we call things that arise spontaneously and are outside our control, which can benefit us if we evaluate them, opportunities. Opportunities are things that come our way and stand there for us to take action on. Like the classic method, I also advocate for the evaluation of opportunities. But I also advocate for the implementation of the chosen opportunity. The critical point is how to select an opportunity or which opportunity to choose.

Opportunity Types: Uncontrolled and Forced Opportunities

Before moving on to the selection part, I need to briefly mention the types of opportunities. According to my view, there are two types of opportunities.

• Uncontrolled Opportunities: Situations that arise entirely through environmental interaction, spontaneously, and outside our control, which can turn out in our favor if we evaluate them.
• Forced Opportunities: Situations that develop outside our control but force us to take action in order to "survive" or continue, and which yield benefits when properly managed.

Opportunities arise from environmental interactions that are inherently beyond the control of individuals and are fleeting. I call all opportunities that conform to this definition Uncontrolled Opportunities.

I refer to the other type of opportunity as a Forced Opportunity. Let me explain this with an example. When Yemeksepeti (a food delivery service) joined Delivery Hero in 2015, it also became part of a global work environment. Until then, I only spoke Turkish, but having global colleagues meant that I was forced to overcome the language barrier. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to communicate or do my job.

As you can see in this example, there is a situation outside my control that forces me to take action in order to survive and ultimately benefits me. These are what I call forced opportunities.

It's often easier than expected to recognize forced opportunities. If an event is beyond your control and makes you feel uncomfortable, congratulations, a forced opportunity may be surrounding you.

Opportunity Selection: Prioritizing with Values and Goals

By categorizing opportunities into two types, I've essentially created a shortcut for myself. Subsequently, I treat these opportunities as accelerators to reach my intended goals. My goal isn't to skip steps but to accelerate the steps that can be sped up in the process.

Initially, it makes more sense and is more beneficial to select forced opportunities that enable survival. If the sole purpose is survival, implementing these opportunities may often be sufficient.

Life wouldn't be so easy if it were just about forced events. However, because growth and making a difference are in our nature, we will eventually need to evaluate other opportunities. This is where I incorporate values and goals.

I identify uncontrolled opportunities, list them on paper, and then add my values and goals alongside them. Then, for each one, I ask myself the following questions:

• How does opportunity X help me achieve goal Y?
• How can I use value Z to implement opportunity X?
• How might value Z prevent me from implementing opportunity X?
• How can I use value Z to achieve goal Y? (If you've done a values and goals exercise, this information is already available.)

After answering the questions, I place the opportunity with the most connection to values and goals at the top of the list and start with it. I try to perform evaluations starting from the opportunity with the highest potential for maximizing gains.

Strengths: Protection, Questioning, and Revealing Threats

In the classic method, we talked about needing to protect our strengths more than anything else. I reaffirm my recommendation for protection in this method as well. However, based on my applications, I've seen that strengths can sometimes harm us. As I mentioned in my Discover Your Core Values: A Practical Guidepost, some needs may appear as values or some of our values may stick to us due to peer pressure. I think it's important to examine our strengths a bit before we protect them. I believe this part could be developed with a better method; I'd really appreciate hearing your approaches if you have something that works.

After the preliminary screening, when protecting our strengths, I ask questions to reveal some potential threats:

• What prevents me from using strength X?
• What slows me down when I use strength X?

You can add the obstacles revealed by these questions to the threats section and the things that slow you down to the weaknesses section. This way, you also identify potential threats that could harm your strengths.

Protecting our strengths is recommended both by the classic method and this one. But sometimes it's not as easy as that. I try to internalize the process by asking myself questions like:

• How can I use value X to use my strength X more?
• Which values can I use as leverage to bring strength X to the forefront?

Essentially, I'm trying to get you to convince yourself by incorporating concepts that we usually use to make decisions and say no in our daily lives.

Weaknesses: Steps to Turn Into Opportunities

Weaknesses express what we lack or haven't yet experienced. Unlike the classic method, I come with a more practical approach of relating to opportunities or converting them into opportunities. In fact, I even exaggerate by saying that if you don't take action on your weaknesses, they will eventually turn into threats.

When looking at the definition of weaknesses, we realize that something is missing. There's an incompleteness that needs to be completed, but in today's fast-paced world, finding the means, material or otherwise, to complete this deficiency won't be easy. Instead, what I suggest is that you view this deficiency as an opportunity and embark on a journey to address it, which will also allow you to gain some additional benefits along the way.

Unlike the action step, in weaknesses, there may even be some misleading items. That is, you may have false weaknesses. I have many SWOT results to think that these false weaknesses are actually needs or are titles that have been imposed on you due to peer pressure. Sometimes sentences like "everyone should be able to give a good presentation" or "everyone should be very social" can enter the list of weaknesses not because we genuinely care, but because others say so. So, when evaluating your weaknesses, don't forget this.

To find out if a weakness is genuine, I try to find it by imagining rather than asking the question "Is X really a weakness?" There must be an opposite situation to my weakness. When I reach that opposite situation, I should feel stronger. Then I start imagining; I specialize in the area corresponding to the reverse of my weakness, and how much acceleration does this provide me? If I can continuously imagine, and if I reach a point in my imagination that is better than where I am now (according to myself), then I think it's a weakness worth evaluating. Otherwise, I think it may be a need and put it on hold.

After identifying a weakness worthy of evaluation, the task is how to relate it to an opportunity or turn it into one. The dream I have here serves as an imaginary strong point that I want to possess in the future. In other words, by linking this weakness, I enter an approach that will serve my future strong point. As I progress, there may be difficulties; for this reason, adding values and goals that I use in opportunity evaluation is beneficial.

Because we include weaknesses in the opportunity flow, I think it would be valuable to make a small update to the ranking order in the opportunity flow. If you have linked an opportunity to one or more weaknesses, it could be a forced opportunity; please don't overlook it. After all, actions not taken for weaknesses will turn into threats facing you.

In summary, by following the steps below, you can overcome your weaknesses:

1. Determine whether your weakness actually has the potential to transform you into something that truly strengthens you.
2. Imagine the strong point you want to have in the future corresponding to the reverse of this weakness.
3. Look at the opportunities you have and mark those related to this weakness; pay particular attention to those linked to multiple weaknesses.
4. Move these opportunities, which are candidates for accelerating both your goals and eliminating your weaknesses, higher up on the opportunity list.

Threats: Becoming Aware, Raising a Flag, and Turning Into Opportunities

The last group of SWOT and the area I've delved into most deeply in my method is threats. I have a three-step action proposal for threats:

• Become aware
• Raise a flag
• Turn it into an opportunity

While managing, I unintentionally tended to apply approaches that I had seen from previous managers. However, after my first training, I realized that I could develop my own approach and take more innovative steps instead of saying things in a template fashion. I adopted an approach that prioritizes thinking about and removing obstacles for colleagues rather than following the usual flow. For this reason, I've delved deeply into this area because it's where things get blocked.

Becoming Aware

Just as opportunities are beyond our control, threats are also things outside our control. Therefore, determining threats is one of the most difficult tasks. Knowing not only that a threat exists but also where it might arise will speed up the identification process.

The solution in all these types of threats is to become aware, meaning to realize that this situation is a threat.

Threats from Individuals or Groups

These are behaviors that constantly bully and manipulate, preventing your growth and development. Being mocked or repeatedly told you need to improve in a specific area can be points to observe for identifying this type of threat. For example, being consistently ridiculed during team meetings or being compared to others in a particular area within the family could fall into this category.

Environmental Threats

These are threats that arise from the environment we live in and experience. Changing these is either very easy or requires adaptation. The choice of which to do is up to you. For example, working in a constantly noisy office or losing time every day due to heavy traffic can be simple examples of environmental threats.

Threats We Make to Ourselves

These are threats we create for ourselves knowingly or unknowingly. These are the most damaging and difficult to resolve. It may even be necessary to seek expert support to identify these threats.

One of the self-made threats I would mention is the concept of masking strengths. This concept refers to when overusing one of our strengths leads to it harming us. We're poisoning ourselves or slowing down with a strength we're overly using, or so it seems. It has the potential to reach a point of stagnation and inactivity. That's why it's very dangerous.

In the later stages of this threat, the individual may end up in a cycle of victimhood and be unable to escape. It is recommended that you seek support from a mentor as soon as possible at this point.

Raising a Flag

After identifying the threat and becoming aware of it, we need to raise a flag, meaning inform those around us, according to our situation. This will trigger an emergency behavior in our surroundings, allowing us time and opportunity to prepare for the next step.

I took this step inspired by John Kotter's story in his book Our Iceberg is Melting and the first step of change, creating a sense of urgency, described in his book Leading Change. Creating a sense of urgency is needed because there needs to be a change. There's a threat, and it needs to be resolved. Using all communication channels to ensure that everyone is aware of this threat will both speed up the solution and provide you with some relief by sharing the emotion.

Turning Into Opportunities

In the final step, the threat needs to be transformed into an opportunity. This opportunity can be provided by the people around you or by yourself. If there are already some opportunities available, trying to use them is a solution. However, make sure that the opportunity you choose not only eliminates the threat but also benefits you. That is, it should serve you again.

I want to remind you that choosing an opportunity that solely eliminates the threat can bring new threats. Sometimes eliminating a threat may take time and require extra effort. But the space it opens up when it's completely eliminated will be invaluable. I think one reason I specifically added this step when developing the method is because of this gain.

Conclusion: A Personal SWOT Journey with the Opportunity Zone Approach

I'm trying to develop a SWOT assessment method that incorporates individuals more deeply, focuses on gains, and examines threats in detail. I believe I'm approaching things from a different perspective, but I still need to remind you that this method worked for me, but it may not yield the same results for everyone. I'm curious about your experience.

I encourage you to try it, develop your own version, and share it with others. If the method works for you, it would be a great pleasure for me if you shared it with others. You can contribute by sharing the assessment method you use with me, forwarding this post to people you want to read it, or leaving your likes and comments.

Resources and Further Reading

• Our Iceberg Is Melting A Penguin story that describes the steps of change.
• Leading Change A reference book on managing change.
• Don't Just Play To Your Strengths. Focus On Your Polarities An article discussing how strengths can turn into weaknesses when overused, focusing on leadership and polarity management.
• Personal SWOT Analysis Examples: How To Achieve Your Goals Practical suggestions for converting SWOT results into action, prioritizing them, and relating them to personal goals.