Today’s essay
The Risks of Playing It Safe
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Fortune favors the bold. Corporate comms, traditionally, does not. As an industry, we communicators are very skilled at being careful, measured, safe. These can be good things, but they stand in the way of great things.
There’s a common belief that less risk equals less error. That’s wrong. When you avoid risks, you don’t make fewer mistakes — you make different mistakes. You make mistakes of omission. And for startups in particular, those are the worst kind of mistakes because your enemy is the status quo. When you only play it safe, you forfeit opportunities to define a new category, change people's minds, stoke an important debate, and maybe even change the whole trajectory of your company.
Won’t taking risks also lead to mistakes? Yes, inevitably. But here’s the key: don’t do anything obviously dumb.
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