Taking A Risk – What Does That Look Like For You and Your Team
Don’t be afraid to have a reality check. Taking risks is OK but you must be realistic.
Joy Mangano
Last Saturday night, I attended playback theatre at the Brisbane Playback Theatre. If you have never been to playback theatre I can thoroughly recommend it. It is a lot of fun and can be enlightening as well.
Basically, people tell their real-life stories, choose actors to play out the various roles from their story and the playback theatre troop playback the story for you. The actors are so clever because they need to listen intently to absorb the story. They don’t know if they are going to have a role.
Once they start the story playback, each actor needs to play off each other to keep the story going. They each add their own interpretation as well. This creates a total new experience for the audience for each story.
An MC provides the conduit between the audience and the actors and keeps the momentum of the evening going. Also, there is a person who plays improv music to add atmosphere to each story playback.
The theme for last Saturday night’s performance was “Taking A Risk”. I believe you will agree that the whole concept of playback theatre is taking a risk!
Last Saturday, I took a risk and jumped in to tell one of my life stories.
I love discovering vistas from high vantage points. I’m not a mountain climber. That’s way too risky. However, whenever my former husband or I travelled, I would find a challenge to reach a high point. It might be climbing the hill next to where we were camped or climbing a church tower in Melo Uruguay to see the town from the top. My former husband was born in Melo Uruguay.
The story I shared was about a trip that we took along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria – a magnificently beautiful vista. Part of the attraction along this route are the Twelve Apostles. This is a collection of limestone stacks off the shore of the Port Campbell National Park.
There used to be one spot that was called the bridge. A very narrow span of land extended out to one of the apostles in the sea. This narrow span was an arch that was very eaten out by the erosive forces of wind and sea. You could walk from the mainland to this apostle via this precarious arch.
I decided that we should make this walk to have a look at the vista of the Great Southern Ocean from the apostle. As you can imagine, my former husband was not impressed. He had lots of prior memories from earlier escapades.
I took a risk and started to walk out along the way. There were no handrails or protective barriers, but it appeared safe and lots of people had gone out and back while we (read I) were deciding. My husband reluctantly followed behind me.
We were half way across when I heard a gasp from behind. I slowly turned my head to look and discovered that my husband was on his hands and knees. He was totally overcome by the height and the precarious spot where we were.
Then, reality hit me too. I looked around and down (wrong move). I froze and started to feel the fear coming up from thesoles of my feet to my head in a huge wave like the ocean below. This caused my body to start wobbling. I mentally said a few expletives about the situation that I had placed us in.
Fortunately, my former husband and I inched our way back to safety. We heard a couple of years later that the bridge collapsed leaving the apostle to stand on its own in the sea. My husband was quick to point out that he was right about how dangerous this escapade had been.
As I watched the playback troop replay this life event for me and as I’ve reflected since, I realised there are lots of factors that come into play to take life risks. There needs to be an element of naivety as well as courage. There’s an element of feel the fear and do it anyway.
My biggest learning though was that I had not respected my former husband’s fear of heights at all. He was going to come with me on that walk because he would have wanted to protect me – the traditional male role. My ignoring his fear put both of us in jeopardy for our lives.
As leaders, you need to understand the capability of your team. You cannot afford to ride roughshod over someone’s abilities and aptitude otherwise you may put the whole team and organisation at risk.
If you are a trusted and strong leader, people may follow you without thought so you need to know that the risk that you are taking is worth it for everyone not just your own ego.
A wonderful way for discovering your life risk level is to take time for immersion in discovering who you are and what makes you tick. My Women’s Empowerment and Leadership program can assist. Come along and take the opportunity to explore your most important person – you.
My next program is scheduled for 5th and 6th July 2018. Please contact me to discuss.
Always happy for comments too.
