Weekend Musings: Risk it to win it

I was recently invited to address students at a university which was supposed to be confined to 15 minutes. While I was thinking about a subject that might be of relevance, it was important to keep the conversation focused on a topic that had reasonable significance to the audience as well. To make the talk relatable, I thought of sharing some experiences. I realized that the one thing that has been common in those experiences was the successful outcome as part of taking risks. This provided me with the opportunity to remind myself of the necessity of improvising for efficient decision making that, at times, involves taking risks!

To make a comfortable life a memorable one, stepping outside your comfort zone is necessary to learn and grow as an individual. And for living the life you’ve always dreamt of, one needs to take positive, calculated risks. However many are scared to take the initial leap. The primary reason being - the 4 stages of risk-taking. Stage 1 is easy – the first risk. Goals and ambitions often drive people to step out of the box and take a risk. Their calculation and planning is their guiding light here while luck is the devil in the dark. And more often than not, luck brings the whole plan down. Stage 2 is hard to accept – failure. Coming to terms with watching your dream fail is not easy for anybody. Stage 3 is terrorizing – fear. After all, the only thing harder than watching your dream fail is watching it fail once again. And that’s why stage 4 is often ignored – taking a risk ‘again’.

The problem, I feel, is in our perception of stage 3. If you don’t take a risk to achieve your dream fearing failure, you will fail nonetheless. Failure is something to be embraced and learnt from rather than feared because now that you have faced it once, it will be much easier to face it again (if need be). As a result, taking a second risk becomes easier since there is nothing to lose and everything to gain. This perception makes taking risks easy, as failure becomes a cushion you can bounce off. You will either win or learn and there is no loss in learning.

This perception has come to my aid many times. As a leader, the decisions I take are always critical but not always successful. From launches to collaborations, timelines to deadlines, I don’t have a 100% success rate. But I am still proud of that because I do have a 100% bounce back rate. It’s not because failure doesn’t disappoint me, it does as much as everyone, it’s because resigning to failure disappoints me even more. I would rather be known as the person who succeeded in his 10th try than the person who gave up on his first.

One of the earliest instances of taking risks and turning it into subsequent successes was during the initial days of my career. Back then, I was managing product development and the capability to design, test and develop products locally was limited. This resulted in longer development lead time as majority of work was carried out at the R&D headquarters. While we were trying to persuade the HQ to delegate responsibilities to the local subsidiary, which itself was a risk considering limited abilities and infrastructure, we considered the trade-off as well. That meant lower lead times, higher customization of products for local needs and lower cost of development, which made us realize that taking this risk was worthy of time. On the other hand, we were at crossroads for deciding the structure and capabilities of the organization - whether to outsource prototyping, testing and other related works or to have these functions in-house, which meant a Capex heavy but an inclusive organization. Taking those crucial decisions involved potential risks and as a result, we encountered instances of project delays, rejections of design proposals and opportunity losses on account of production delays. However, consistent learnings, stretched efforts and collective wisdom always motivated me to keep the momentum going. One success lead to another and now when we look back, it feels good to see how the organization expanded its local R&D from the point it started to a behemoth it is today.

There is another very important aspect that can’t be undermined when it comes to taking risks - ‘intelligent gut feeling’. Simply put, it is a combination of data-oriented conclusions and gut feeling. The former is based on historical and factual data, while the latter is purely intuitive. I try to use a combination of logic and emotion when making decisions of any kind and it continues to be something which I strive to improvise on. So, the next time you’re faced with the dilemma of taking risks, just remember that it is not about succeeding at your first try. It's about making the most out of the second chance and now it is your turn.