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A highlight of March was completing a major milestone on my program at work. Less than a year ago, I took on our site’s largest program, which was about half-way complete and $1M over budget. Some might have said then that signing up to manage that program was a risk. I certainly saw it as a challenge – the team was large and fairly clearly divided into factions, the model of work was successive firedrills, and the customer’s most significant priority was not being adequately addressed – but it didn’t feel like much of a risk. Why? First, the ability to affect change was squarely in my control. I had management support, key team leadership support, and moreover the alignment of responsibility and authority to make changes. Second, managing programs is in my “sweet spot.” I still have a long way to go in learning various aspects of capturing new business, but when it comes to executing on the business we have, I’ve got a good track record and I know what it takes to meet schedules and milestones and budgets. Third, the program was already in trouble. If I came in and things didn’t turn around, frankly it would be easy to say the train had left the tracks long ago and nothing that I or anyone else could do was enough to bring it back. There was the opportunity for success, but low risk of blame on me if things went poorly. I don’t like this last argument as well, because I believe it’s my responsibility regardless of the starting point, but it is certainly part of the risk assessment. Thus the option before me last April to step up to leading the troubled project involved lots of hard work, but low risk. And now, as we’ve gotten the nod to proceed into the next phase and have the first increment of funding in place, it appears that my assessment was reasonable.

Now let’s extend the logic from the workplace to physical challenges or risks. An Ultramarathon is squarely in my sights for this year. Some people think a marathon is verging on insanity, so running 50km (30 miles) or longer, let alone adding in hills/mountains, rocks, roots and mud, is definitely on the wrong side of normal logic. But let’s look at the real challenge in extending from 13 miles to 30 miles – eating and pacing. I showed last weekend that I can run 2.25 hours with no food or water on a reasonably cool day, but clearly I couldn’t go much further without replacing the calories, electrolytes and water my body was consuming. At this point I’ve trained my body to efficiently use the stored energy, so to go farther I need to teach it to digest and run at the same time. I also need to learn a different pacing – it may be a “race” but it’s not about racing to finish first, it’s about finishing, period. It only takes a quick look at ultra race results or reading Born to Run to see that people don’t try to keep an 8 minute pace on these events; 12-25 minute pace is common. The key is keeping a sustainable balance between what’s ingested and what’s expended. The training I’m doing at this point is getting comfortable listening to my body’s needs and limits – knowing when to start eating, conserving energy by walking up a steep hill, slowing down to make sure I finish my gel or water at the aid stop, treading lightly downhill so I don’t kill my quads or find myself sitting on a rock unexpectedly (a.k.a. falling down).

Through both my running and my working, I’ve been reflecting more broadly on actual risk vs. perceived risk. Often risk seems greater because of how we frame the problem. Too many times it feels like people (self included) are prone to looking at what could go wrong, instead of balancing that with what can go right. Risks are not in a vacuum – there is often an upside as well as a downside.
– In competitions there’s the risk of dehydration and injury, but the key risk seems to be not finishing, which is not so bad in the scheme of things. Sure it’s a disappointment after months of training to not meet a race goal, but its important to remember that the upside is already been gained in better fitness, enjoying the training along the way, the camaraderie of training buddies, and hopefully in learning something from failed attempts.
– In the case of my project last year, the real risk wasn’t whether I could succeed on the project, it was the opportunity cost of focusing on running the project vs. other ways I could learn those critical marketing and business capture skills that I need for the next step in my career.
– Nearly all of us have some savings in the stock market even though we know there is a risk of loss, and even though pretty much all of us have actually lost money recently. The reason we invest is because over a long period of time we believe that the investment will grow, even if on a day-to-day basis it’s volatile.

Risk definitely involves difficult decisions. In the moment, do you want to eat this cookie or lose weight? Do I want to nap on a Sunday afternoon or go out for a run? Is something I do for myself worth missing time with my family and friends?

What seems risky and why does it seem that way to you? Is it focusing on what could go wrong without properly weighting the upside? Is it framing a problem too restrictively, so that the larger considerations aren’t sufficiently clear? As you consider taking risks, who will you listen to who will help you see the true picture?