Risk is uncertainty that matters. To prevent this, we try to control, mitigate, standardise and manage people and processes.

This principle was revealed to me years ago when I hosted a speaker at the South African Reserve Bank. He was an expert in risk, there to do a lunchtime presentation. What I learned that day has stayed with me over the many years since. 

What it ultimately boils down to is that risk is uncertainty that matters. There is one such kind of uncertainty with which we are all familiar – the risk that bad things will happen. 

A different perspective

However, there is a whole additional type of risk. It’s as real as the first kind, but it is hardly ever considered in how we approach life and leadership and the uncertainties surrounding us. It’s the risk that good things will not happen. 

If you think that this is just semantics, you’ve probably not fully grasped the implications of the point and what it opens up for all of us in terms of possibilities. 

How different might the world be if we spent the same amount of energy working to make possible the good, rather than only to prevent the bad? What if we focus on the goals we want to achieve – with and through others – rather than on the adverse outcomes we want to avoid? 

So now, when I am giving someone a new opportunity, I constantly ask myself some important questions: 

• Am I spending as much time imagining what they could do if they rise to the challenge as I am thinking about what could go wrong if they are out of their depth? 
• Am I putting as much effort into preparing them to succeed as I make contingency plans if they fail?

This applies to my work as a facilitator. If I suddenly realise things have taken a turn I wasn’t expecting during a session, and I don’t know how to navigate it, I no longer become paralysed by fear that my client will think that I am incompetent if I admit that I don’t have the answer.

Instead, I take the alternative path and embrace it as an opportunity for growth. By being honest about the situation, I’m creating a chance for something powerful to happen when I ask the team to step up and work through the challenge together.

Another scenario

All leaders at one time or another have had to manage an individual who is a high performer and toxic. Anyone who has faced that kind of dilemma will probably feel like I did – like I was being held hostage by someone whose skills were critical to the project but whose way of bringing those skills to their work was poisoning everyone else. 

It dawned on me that instead of feeling trapped, I needed to spend my time, effort and energy not being concerned about what risk I ran if I asked this person to leave. I needed to focus on what might be possible if he were gone. 

If the team had their confidence, competence and contribution restored by his going, we may well be able to figure it out together in ways that would surprise – and delight – all of us. 

Without question, the most rewarding experiences of my career have been seeing what people are capable of when I have created an environment in which I don’t just get the most out of them but also the best. It’s when their discretionary energy comes back to life, and they achieve things that no one, including themselves, thought possible. 

As leaders, we are elevated and entrusted not only with resources but with people’s lives. This is something we cannot help but take seriously. And sometimes, it’s worth the risk to avoid the possibility that good things will never happen. 

Geena Davis said it best: “If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.”

Niven Postma has enjoyed a wide and varied career, including being CEO of the Businesswomen’s Association of South Africa, Head of the South African Reserve Bank Academy, and Head of Leadership and Culture for the Standard Bank. The author of If You Don’t Do Politics, Politics Will Do You, Postma is a global strategy and culture consultant and works on women’s leadership development.

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