Climbing, Mountains, Business & Risk

I’m often asked why I use a climbing or mountain analogy when I speak on intelligent risk taking or innovation. The reason is that once people begin thinking about risk the process becomes at once overly complicated and convoluted. Why? Because risk taps into the unknown and uncertainty of the future. We all know that we love to think we are in control of all that happens in our lives so the thought of being out of control makes us uncomfortable. One way to get people out of this predictable cycle is to have them think about the subject in a completely different light.

I believe that it is my job to take all of my years of experience and research and simplify it to a level that anyone can look at taking a risk in a new light. That is why I use climbing and a mountain metaphor.

It is only by taking a risk that we grow. At some point each of us had to move on into kindergarten (as uncomfortable as that made most of us). Then we had to take the next step on to middle school and then high school. Next, we had to launch ourselves out into the world, into a career, not knowing how any of it might turn out.

Interestingly, many of us were much more willing to take risks when we were younger. One reason is that we really didn’t know what we were in for, the other is that we had less to lose. Just as in business it seems the more you have acquired the more reluctant we become to take risks.

So climbing, mountains and business… what do they have in common. Over the next several posts I discuss these similarities.

Accounts Payable:

You are climbing with your partner, you fall, your partner catches you. Other than a few cuts and bruises you walk away OK. You now owe them. That’s accounts payable.