Many of the strategies employed in competitive and recreational sports are often applicable in business and our personal lives. One lesson I learned from alpine ski racing was the "40-30-30 Rule." During training, early on, I tried to go fast and I also focused on not falling. On a ride up the ski lift, my coach told me I was missing the point. He explained that success in ski racing, or most sports for that matter, was only 40% physical training. The other 60% was mental. And of that, the first 30% was technical skill and experience. The second 30% was the willingness to take risks.
With ski racing, specifically, that meant taking the risk of leaning harder into turns, balancing at a steeper angle to the slope, and placing greater pressure on the outside ski edge – all of which increased the chance of falling. My coach explained, though, that if I wasn’t falling at least once a day in training, I wasn’t trying hard enough. Indeed, to improve at anything, we must at some point push ourselves outside our comfort zone. Body builders call it the “pain period.” Only by trying something new, struggling, learning, and then trying again do we improve our performance. It’s a simple matter of acclimating to unchartered territory.
And when we come out the other side, we often can't help but wonder why we were so timid in the first place. Questioning this fear is not unfounded. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has shown that we deal with failure better than we'd expect. In studies, “when people are asked to predict how they’ll feel if they lose a job… or fail a contest, they consistently overestimate how awful they’ll feel and how long they’ll feel awful.” In other words, “we overestimate the intensity and duration of our distress in the face of future adversity.”
While we tend to focus solely on building our skill sets or expanding our knowledge, the greatest advancement and learning most often comes from action, experience, and taking risk. And our regrets in life reflect this. According to Gilbert, studies show that “in the long run, people of every age and in every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret things they did.”
Although playing it safe makes sense in some professions such as financial services and healthcare, for our own individual development, we need to focus on the last 30%. At the same time, as a manager, to foster such development, it’s important to create an environment where it's okay to fail – as long as your team members are pushing themselves. Encourage your employees to learn from their setbacks. And when they fail, be constructive in your reaction – lest they be too hesitant to take risks in the future.
Our inhibitions have evolved to protect us. In many cases, though, they limit us. The challenge is to rebalance our nature. Ultimately, it’s the ones who barrel through the discomfort, are resilient in the face of failure, and master the last 30% of taking risk who reach the highest levels of performance. Confucius put it well. "Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail."
*** This article is based on the research and writing of Michael Schwalbe, a seasoned investment analyst and workplace psychology wonk. His work contributes to the knowledgebase of the Behance team, who run the Behance Creative Network, the 99% productivity think tank, the Action Method project management application, and the Creative Jobs List.
