Take risks by disassociating outcome with decision
About a year ago, I made a list of people that I want to reach out to and interview so I can learn more about their leadership story. I drafted email messages to ask them if they'd be willing to talk to me for about 30-45 minutes. Those messages have been in my drafts folder since then - for almost a year. I just can't get myself the courage to press send!
I'm afraid that they will say no. I'm afraid that I will be ignored. I'm afraid that behind the no and not responding, what they're thinking is, "Tiffany is not someone I'd want to know. She's not good (or important) enough for my time."
Have you ever done this to yourself?
I'm definitely not special. This is a typical fear all of us face. And our response to not act is even more universal.
It just feels too risky.
I want to know that there's going to be a positive outcome before I feel comfortable hitting "send."
If I really think about it, is that certainty of a positive outcome ever promised?
Risk is when the outcome is uncertain. It's safer within certainty, so we avoid taking risks - not just in sending emails, but also in making music and putting on concerts.
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We'd rather stick with what we know works - performing a sanctioned interpretation, performing certain music in certain settings, wearing certain clothes, having a template for a concert program.
And as musicians, we tend to make everything we do high stakes. Our industry holds perfection as an expectation. We've been conditioned to think that way starting from when we were young, when playing a wrong note feels like the end of the world. In addition, we don't have a history of practicing (and receiving) intentional positive feedback. When the teacher or conductor has something to say, it is often about what's wrong. We've learned to fly under the radar because the only way we know we've been doing a good job is when we did not receive attention.
If we choose to take an artistic risk, we have so much at stake because the outcome may be bad. So we don't.
We've learned to avoid risk under the ingrained pressure to be perfect and right 100% of the time. Just consider what the typical violinist believes is necessary to win an audition - perfect execution and conformity to interpretation are two metrics that quickly come to mind. Is that all that counts? Probably not. But most of us think so.
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It may be interesting to consider if not taking risks would always lead to positive outcomes?
We tend to associate the quality of the outcome with the quality of our decision to do something - like taking a risk. We think that a bad outcome means it was a bad decision. A good outcome means it was a good decision. If we think about it, that is not necessarily all true.
Former professional poker player Annie Duke suggests one way to think about this:
She asks us to think of a good decision that we've made recently. Odds are that the decision you chose had a good outcome, which is why you thought it was a good decision. Can you think of an instance where you made a good decision that resulted in a bad outcome? Those are harder to see.
So it can be useful to disassociate the outcome with the quality of the decision. It's helpful to understand that outcomes are a large part due to luck and circumstances out of our control.
If we always want or expect a good outcome, we may never take the necessary risks to further our work, improve our processes, or become more effective in our impact.
What is a risk that you've been dancing around or avoiding? How can you disassociate the potential outcome with your decision to take that risk?
(Read more about Annie Duke's ideas on decision-making in her book Thinking in Bets.)
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