How does your school handle risk?
From Bill Alberti at Verbatim, the Communispace blog.
Risk is a tricky concept. Business typically wants to limit, manage,
or mitigate it. Eliminating risk altogether probably would be seen as
the ultimate success (thank you, Six Sigma). But in life, most great
things don’t come without some level of risk.
Getting married, having kids, quitting a job, taking a new one.
Think of any of the biggest developments in your life or the broader
world around you and I’d bet none of those happen without a fair amount
of risk.
However, from an early age we are taught to avoid risk. We
understand that with risk comes mistakes. And mistakes can be painful.
But making mistakes is also how we learn.
We aren’t born knowing that the square peg doesn’t fit into the
round hole. We need to try it for ourselves. We experiment. We learn
not only what doesn’t fit, we also learn what does. And in that process
of learning we begin to see relationships—those between shapes and
spaces, challenges and solutions, effort and satisfaction. More is
learned from the time spent trying than if we got it all right on the
first attempt.
But in business, mistakes mean more cost, more time, and lost
opportunities. With the drive towards higher levels of productivity,
higher margins, and more efficiency we don’t have room for mistakes.
Without that room, the ability of business to learn and grow is
limited. Sure, companies can capitalize on incremental opportunities
but they will miss the bigger breakthroughs because they didn’t see as
many relationships, have as many experiences, or try as hard. They
won’t learn as much from their mistakes, because they won’t make as
many of them.
Companies need to create room for mistakes. To explore and try out
stuff with their customers. To learn. And to do so faster, to get to
the right solution sooner. When companies can make mistakes (ideally
outside of the public eye) they can learn invaluable lessons from doing
so and bring their customers better solutions because of it.
Risk isn’t that tricky of a concept if you think about it
differently—not as the negative value of an event, but as a process
capable of yielding positive, even breakthrough results. Make a
practice of making mistakes. Create a private space in which to do so.
Build a “learning agenda” for your company. And embrace risk. Because
what’s true in life is true in business—most great things don’t happen
without a fair amount of risk.