I usually spend my Saturday mornings catching up on my reading, monitoring Twitter (and now Google+) feed and writing these blog posts. I saw a link in Twitter to this video and I actually stayed with it all the way until the end. It features Seth Godin, and I knew he'd say something I would find worth remembering.
As usual, Seth delivered.
At the very end, he said, "I would say innovation has two components. One, it's an invitation to failure. If there isn't an opportunity for failure, it's not innovative. Two, it's about solving an interesting problem. If you're not doing those two things then I don't think you are innovating."
Recently, I wrote about a young lady who is thinking about making a pivot in her career, leaving a well-built, nicely paid, international position as a freelance journalist for a job in academia. I think she asked me to help her decide whether or not to accept the job because she needed a risk assessment. She was asking, "am I crazy or what?"
Outside of my teenagers, I don't tell people what to do. But, I will echo Seth's words that if you are not risking anything, you are not innovating. If you are not questioning what you are doing, you are not doing anything.
And that is where risk assessment truly begins.
*Chantal de la Rionda edits this blog
