I was talking lately about dealing with expected situations and mentioned flexibility as a factor which helps with that. I was thinking about that a bit more, what brought me to another thing. Courage. It’s one thing to be flexible being able to think about different, sometimes risky, solutions. It’s another to take a decision. Especially when it’s risky.
In the example I gave in post about problem solving we took a risky decision. For our customer taking over maintenance of a big part of a project from a subcontractor isn’t good news. That means the level of support will go down for some time (short I hope), until our developers will become familiar with the source code. What more, decision was risky because we have to switch some tasks internally to find some people to take on the project. We don’t exactly know all potential issues with the part of project we’re taking over. It’s a risk. Yet, it’s the risk we believe we should undertake to improve our cooperation with the customer in the long run.
However, as far as the risk is concerned above example wasn’t especially tough. I strongly believe in our developers’ abilities as they’ve already given me some proofs that they’re able to cope with this kind of tasks. Sometimes the risk is much bigger, so making the decision is much harder.
We’re making some organizational changes within our company. They’re rather deep as we plan to have fully independent product divisions. It means that if one of divisions will be failing it won’t be probably kept alive with help of another one. When I was asked about my opinion about whole idea I took a while to think and answered: “Let’s try. I believe we can do it, but if we won’t I’m ready to take the consequences.” Answer of one of my colleagues was: “And I am not ready to take the consequences.”
As the best polish soccer trainer, Kazimierz Gorski, said: “Those who are scared to lose the game shouldn’t enter the pitch.” I totally agree. When I see something doesn’t work well I don’t sit and wait for complete disaster. Sometimes polishing thing is a good solution, but sometimes you should use an axe. Even if it can hurt.
Don’t be scared to play big. Make your risk analysis and don’t go for a wild-goose chase, but remember that when something is risky doesn’t automatically mean that it isn’t the best choice. I’ve taken many risky decisions and by now none of them I regret much. Risk is a bit overrated then, I guess.
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