It’s easy to talk about risks when it’s in hindsight. In the past tense. We can refer to the risks that worked out nicely. The ones that make us seem cavalier and forward-thinking and fearless. I have a lot of those.
Today I’m interested in discussing risks that didn’t work out the way we might have hoped. I could talk about failed relationships, moves that didn’t pan out, work opportunities that’ve gone sour.
The example I’ll share today came upon reflecting back on 2018 when two of my colleagues and I flew to a coastal city to pitch a Fortune 500 company that had included us as one of four creative agencies to send an RFP.
We’d rehearsed the presentation and delivered it like a well-oiled machine. Better yet, we got along super well with the clients. It was everything you could hope for in a first meeting; lots of laughing, positive vibes, and synchronicity.
Towards the end of the meeting, the most senior client in the room turned to me and sincerely asked what our dream assignment was. What a question!
As my brain synopses fired away in the milliseconds between question and response, a number of thoughts crossed my mind. I could tell them what most in my position would have said: A TV campaign. Big budget. Prestige. Lots of exposure. Or I could have played the digital card, proving our worth as a millennial-run agency.
Neither of those felt totally honest however.
I surprised myself when I replied back, “We’re less interested in a specific media and more excited by whichever brief allows us to take the biggest creative risk.”
It was a curve ball response, probably too abstract for what they had in mind. (Spoiler Alert: We didn’t win the pitch.)
Now it’d be easy to look back at an answer like that as a fuckup. Not telling them what they wanted to hear. Not playing by the rules.
However, I stand behind it. It’s okay when we take a risk and it doesn’t pan out the way we’d hoped. In a world where everything is an experiment, the line between “success” and “failure” is far blurrier than conventional wisdom might have us believe. I’d say it’s even arbitrary compared to whether or not we stay true to ourselves and our integrity.
As we sink our teeth into 2019, may we learn from and celebrate the people, organizations, and creative endeavors that take risks.
I’m thinking of REI’s Opt Outside campaign when they closed their stores for Black Friday, Nike’s Colin Kaepernick campaign about believing in something at the risk of sacrificing everything. The #metoo movement and the risk of anyone who’s come forward to stand up for themselves. And of course, with MLK Day just having passed, inspiration on taking risks isn’t hard to come by. While these movements have all been deemed successful, there was surely uncertainty at the onset.
May we all have the courage to take risks, even when the outcome isn’t what we’d hoped for. Because calculated risk-taking isn’t risk-taking. Staying true to ourselves, no matter what, is.
