Hello! A hearty welcome to new subscribers and followers! And giddy gratitude to everyone who’s been along from the start. 🙌 Let’s get cracking.
A financial advisor once told me that, when she takes on creatives, she makes them do the risk profile first. It’s faster, apparently. Otherwise they bang on about being risk-averse when they’re clearly not. They’re not silly, she said. Just too used to rolling with risk to notice it’s a choice.1
They’re not alone. Many of the leaders I work with are inclined (and encouraged) to choose risk over safety. And it’s helped them achieve great things, from cross-industry collaborations to new businesses and life-saving vaccines.2
But there’s a flipside to rolling with risk. Even the most brilliant leaders can ignore risks they haven’t chosen in favour of those they have. But they all occupy mental space. They all consume energy. And it’s harder to choose more deliberate risks when you’re already at capacity with ones you haven’t.
🧐 What are your chosen risks?
Intentional risk can be thrilling. It’s also faster to spot, so start here. What are your big fat gambles? Where are you running test—learn—adapt style experiments for swift, incremental progress?3 How are they shaping your capacity for risk? How are they strengthening your resilience?
Get curious too about the balance between those big and small risks. Which might you dial up or down? Where might you dial up chosen risks in response to fewer unchosen ones?
🧐 What are your unchosen risks?
Unchosen risks come in different flavours. Some are a response to uncertainties beyond your control. Like how far to embrace AI, since no one knows all the risks and we're probably worried about the wrong ones anyway. Others will be consciously chosen – just not by you. Like a restructure that landed my coachee with a high risk strategy they hadn’t chosen, but had to deliver.
Get curious across your life: work, home, family, community, environment, whatever’s relevant for you. Where are you experiencing unchosen risk? What’s slipping under your radar? What are you downplaying even though it’s consuming energy? How is unchosen risk in one area impacting your approach elsewhere?
Get curious too about where you can exercise choice within unchosen risk. How might you influence progress or outcomes? Which risks create unexpected space to play?4 (That’s what my coachee chose to explore when they harnessed the risk-everywhere moment to chase a new market.)
🧐 What are your team’s risks?
What feels risky to you might not to your team. But also: vice versa.5 So get curious about the team – together and as individuals. How much risk are they navigating? What’s the balance between chosen and unchosen? Who is drained by unchosen risk outside work? How might you reduce or redistribute some of their chosen risks?
Get curious about where the team lacks risk, too. Which risks are they aching to take? Where are you getting in their way? How might you deepen their resilience to unchosen risk? Who is craving a risk beyond your team? And who is choosing risks for whom?
Deploy your noticing superpower
You’ll find chosen and unchosen risks everywhere in response to this VUCA, post-pandemic, gen AI world. And since merely being human comes with its own mess, delight and tragedy, there’ll be plenty in the analogue world, too. Some are temporary; others outstay their welcome. Some are clearly visible. Others can lurk beneath the surface, diverting your attention without you even noticing.
So get noticing. It’s the simplest and least glitzy of superpowers. Most of us reckon we’re pretty good at it,6 but time dedicated specifically to noticing can be both rare and revelatory. Where are you engaging with risk now?7 Which risks apply to you; which to your team? Which are chosen, or not, and by whom? What’s the balance between them? Both quantity and balance can influence effort and outcome.
Noticing all the risks won’t change them. But it might shed light on a few things. And help you plot a course with a bit more clarity.
Unlike making pension plans, apparently. 🤷♀️
Being able to pass on the thanks of the medic who vaccinated me was an unexpected delight within pandemic awfulness.
Intriguingly, it’s not uncommon for teams to head straight for the Massive Risk because de-risking it with smaller experiments feels… too risky. 🙃
Conversation with social media manager the other day:
Them: I’m terrified of public speaking.
Me: I’m terrified of social media.
Them: 🤦
Fear isn’t the same as risk, but it’s often provoked by perceived risk.
Straw poll alert, but: when I work with leaders on their Innovator’s DNA Discovery Skills, Observing is often the lowest priority. Sometimes the others are more pertinent, but I suspect there’s a hefty chunk of I do this anyway too. So: might I humbly suggest that you… probably don’t? 🫣
A quick and current audit is often more insightful than the big, unwieldy review. Besides, while it’s tempting skip ahead to the sunlit uplands, what you’re experiencing now will inevitably influence what comes next.