My 2015 resolution, Ask:'What's the worst that could happen'?

I’ve decided to adopt a newer, a bit bolder approach to life and business for the upcoming year. From now on, when assessing a problem or potential solution, I will ask others, or myself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Don’t mistake that line of inquiry for flippancy or indifference to risk; I am not trying to be glib in any way. What I am trying to do is push beyond the usual constraints that I have set for myself, either consciously or not, in life and in business.

I have a personal philosophy and saying that everything in life is about risk management. Literally. Everything you do in every way, in all its minutiae, is in one way or another a decision about the management of risk: should I sleep late or get up early; do I exercise today or do it tomorrow; do I take a multi-vitamin or not; do I walk to work or take my car; do I eat breakfast or skip it; do I ask for a raise today or hope the boss gives me one anyway; do I finally start my own business or push it off one more day; do I marry or stay single, and on and on. Each decision in a minor or major way is risk based, but since we have a level of familiarity, or comfort, with each of these decisions we tend not to think of them that way.

For 2015, I have decided that asking, “What’s the worst that could happen?” is the best way to push the limitations of possible options or outcomes that I have imposed on myself. Like many of us, I am paid to come up with results. If the truly worst thing that could happen is nuclear Armageddon (or maybe just a huge financial penalty by a regulator), then one would obviously not go down that path. Yet, if the answer to the question is ultimately the answer to the problem (and I imagine many times it will be), then just by asking it, I am doing my job in vetting all possible options for the solving of the problem.

What is the worst that could happen? Find the answer and work your way back from there. Unfortunately, we typically take the opposite track: we posit the optimal solution, and ask why it won’t work. In this traditional approach, we never get to fully vet the possible universe of solutions that might lead to a truly unique breakthrough for either the person individually (i.e. audacious career move, or a new product innovation for a company.)

This novel approach to risk management can be condensed to this: Optimize risk, not minimize it or avoid it. Why? Because it is easy to minimize or avoid risk altogether – just don’t do what you is being contemplated. You’ve probably heard these excuses from the risk-averse before: Should we outsource back-office operations to India? No! Too much country risk! Should we develop a mobile app version of our flagship software? No! Too much data security risk! Should we be on social media talking about our products to customers? No! Too much brand and reputation risk! All risks, without a doubt, so why no do nothing? Sometimes, nothing is the worst thing that could happen. Sometimes, however, the biggest risk of all might be in doing nothing.