How can we become comfortable with risk?
I want to share an email that I sent out to library staff a few weeks ago to inspire (I hope) greater risk-taking in our organization. The references to greatness are in the context of the book Good to Great, which we are using as a framing tool for our organizational redesign. What do ya think?
From: Bichel, Rebecca
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2012 10:46 AM
To: Library Staff Distribution List
Subject: How can we become comfortable with risk?
How can we each become more comfortable with risk? That’s the question I have been asking myself and asking several of you who have seen me in the last few days.
I have been talking about, and I hope you have been engaged in conversations about the strategic need for our organization to embrace risk in order to become a great organization. A fair question would be “why”? Trying something where you might fail is scary, so why do it? The known, the familiar is comfortable. And if we have been doing it for a while, we are probably so skilled at it, that there is almost no risk that we will fail. It’s easy and it’s safe.
That is one perspective – a valid perspective. But that perspective gives us a good organization, not a great one.
Here is a perspective that can help move us to greatness.
Engaging in risk is just a hands-on way to learn. It is learning through experimentation. It’s the very best learning because it’s learning by doing. If we try something new and are thoughtful about lessons learned, regardless of whether the experiment succeeds or fails, we have succeeded. This is the concept of successful failure. That experiment has gained valuable information for the organization. How can we be a learning organization if we are repeating the same behavior over and over?
Let’s say the libraries have three staff members: Allison, Portia, and Sam who work together. Allison is risk-adverse. She wants to only do those duties that she knows well and is comfortable with. Portia also does her job well but sees an opportunity to improve service to faculty by changing how she does her job. She talks to Allison and suggests that they try the new approach. Allison agrees that it sounds like a good idea, but thinks they should not consider it because it might not work. Allison prefers to play it safe. Portia considers the options and decides to takes a risk. Allison refuses and continues with work as usual.
Sam also does his job well. Sam has an idea for a new program for graduate students. He creates a pilot programs and takes a risk. So Portia and Sam both take a risk. Sam’s new service is a success. Students love it and faculty feedback on impact on learning is positive. Portia’s experiment turns out not to work. It actually takes longer to do the task with the new method. She analyzes the workflow, sees what did not work well and has another idea for a better method that she wants to try. Sam does the same. He analyzes the new service and considers what is working and what needs improvement.
Did Portia fail? Not at all -- Sam and Portia both succeeded. They should both be congratulated and rewarded for advancing the organization’s learning mission. By taking a risk, even one that led to a failed experiment, they increased their knowledge. The term for what Portia engaged in is successful failure. (I don’t love that term but the idea is that there is no failure if lessons are learned that are applied moving forward.) If anyone truly failed in this story, it’s Allison. The organization can’t develop unless each of us experiments and learns.
That’s the opportunity for each of us. Let’s take a risk that can move the organization forward. Think of yourself as a scientist engaging in a thoughtful experiment. You are not trying something for no reason. You are trying something new to advance your knowledge and to advance the organization. Worst case scenario is that you will learn that a given technique or strategy doesn’t work. That’s not scary. That’s learning. That’s our path to greatness.
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University of Texas at Arlington
