When NOT to play it safe
I’ve been talking a lot with my clients about change lately. It seems to be happening everywhere. Across all industries, at all levels of leadership, organizations are in flux. With so much uncertainty over the last three years, it’s tempting to approach these changes with caution, to play it safe. It seems logical, right? Not necessarily. While the dangers of recklessness often become headline-makers, we rarely read about the repercussions of taking a “don’t rock the boat” approach… But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Playing it too safe can lead to stagnation, hinder innovation, and inhibit growth. So how do you know when to take the leap and when to stand down?
Expand your operating range
Some of us are born risk-takers, others shy away from making waves, but most of us lie somewhere in the middle. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, author of the excellent book, Choose Possibility, calls these differences as our “operating range.” The wider your operating range, the more you are able to look at a situation from all sides.
Some of us are born risk-takers, others shy away from making waves, but most of us lie somewhere in the middle. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, author of the excellent book, Choose Possibility, calls these differences as our “operating range.” The wider your operating range, the more you are able to look at a situation from all sides. Thankfully, expanding your operating range is a skill you can cultivate. When we develop our operating range, we are simultaneously developing our judgment, which helps us to assess what is happening, and our flexibility, which helps us to discern what needs to happen next.
Essentially, your operating range allows you to see both the forest and the trees. Sometimes, problems require big-picture thinking, like deciding between an in-person or hybrid workplace. Other problems may require focusing on minutiae, like diagnosing a product problem. You need to see all the individual moving parts to find the truth of the situation.
Visualize failure
When it comes to making decisions, it all comes down to discerning if what you may gain (because nothing is guaranteed) is worth the possible risk to your career or organization. It isn’t an easy process, but there are tools that can help you figure out if the scary thing is the best thing. Instead of risk vs. reward, Singh Cassidy frames this as FOF (fear of failure) vs. FOMO (fear of missing out). When your FOMO is greater than your FOF, you’ll be driven to take action. But what about when you’re already deep in a fear state? How can you think rationally when your fear is taking over? It may surprise you to know that calming the fear involves not just thinking about the positive, but imagining the negative as well. To do this, try visualizing your failure.
This HBR article from Peter Bregman tells us that if you’re deciding between a risky or more conservative action and you feel the fear taking over your rational mind, to visualize the worst possible consequences you can think of. I’m talking about world-on-fire failure. Feel the anxiety, feel the disappointment, feel anything that comes up. Then, take a deep breath and reset. Congratulations, you’ve most likely been through the worst of it. Odds are that whatever catastrophe you just imagined will not happen. And if it does, you’ve just experienced what you’ll feel like, and you survived. It’s only uphill from here. This technique works well for the perfectionists among us because it minimizes the fear of failure, giving it less power over your decisions. When fear isn’t in the driver’s seat, you’ll make better, more rational decisions. Bregman says, “when you visualize failure, you're actually visualizing success. You're watching yourself navigate, survive, and move through failure. And that's an art that doesn't just help you succeed; it helps you live.”
The one constant in the world is change, and being able to find balance in the way you make your decisions is an integral skill for leaders of all levels. When shifts begin, don’t let your fear hold you, your team, and your organization back. Sometimes you have to take a leap.