Risk-taking: the new urgent vs. important conundrum

I've worked as a change agent for over 20 years, and one thing has never changed: the biggest barrier to growth is always delaying your future plans to caretake the present (or focus on the sins of the past).

Sometimes it's on fire, and needs immediate attention, but most times, day to day business operations is a comfort zone for leaders. There's a flavor of certainty: you do x and y happens. Risks are mitigated and people know what to expect. When someone like me comes in and asks you what your plans are for the future, people tell me, "there's no time," or "it's not as high of a priority."

The challenge is that there is never a good time. The future will come, whether we prepared for it or not. And usually, if the same people who are running the business are required to build the future, urgent will always trump important and you will be stuck in operations.

We spend a lot of time as leaders focused on reducing risk by way of planning for all possible disasters. What we don't do is build for possibilities, uncovering the variables for success as diligently as we identified them for failure.

In my coaching practice, I see the same thing: people put off a difficult conversation with their partner because they're worried about a fight, or worse, divorce. They don't take care of their physical health because they don't want to go through the physical pain that comes with the start of getting into shape. In both cases, all we're doing is risking our futures to eliminate the discomfort of today.

If we can start seeing risk-taking as a tool that leads to success, and convert our effective defensive strategies into an offense, we might actually get where we want to go.