The Risk of Playing it Safe

I was speaking with a smart person today who said to me “people think about making safe decisions as something that limits their downside, but they don’t realize that it caps their upside as well.” So true. I also see people being willing to trade away happiness for perceived safety.

Here’s the thing- there are rarely guarantees in life. How often do you hear stories of someone who worked at a company for years- and then with no notice, and much to their surprise, they are fired. That person may have never considered changing companies, or finding a new profession that they would have found more satisfying, because they were playing it safe. It is possible that 50 years ago there were things like job security. Outside a few professions (maybe government work? being a tenured professor?) — there is no longer an implied social contract — but somehow the psyche of many workers hasn’t caught up to this.

I may have a skewed view of job safety, because I was raised by a father who most certainly marched to the beat of his own drummer- and was quick to quit a job if he felt it wasn’t working for him anymore. When I was a little girl he was a professor and hated it. For years after, he went from job to job- until eventually he started his own restaurant and from there got into real estate investing- all of which was what he did until he died (admittedly very young, so still not that long of a tenure). In any case, in those years of changing jobs, my mother was always very steady as a school teacher, fortunately a job she loved and at which she was so gifted.

I remember once my father was working in a restaurant (not one he owned) and he was cooking at the grill. The regional manager of the chain of restaurants came in and told my father to stop singing — something he often did when the spirit moved him- at work, walking down the street, in the grocery store- whenever. My father found this to be an infringement beyond what he was willing to endure, and (as he told the story) tore off his apron with a flourish and tossed it on the ground. He walked off the job and never went back. We certainly weren’t a family flush with resources, but to my dad, it was the principal of the thing.

I can’t say I have ever been quite that dramatic in quitting a job, but the notion that you have to govern your own existence stayed with me in a very strong way. I think that as a “good worker” it is important to find the balance between giving your best work, and knowing when to walk away. These are not at all mutually exclusive. In fact I do think it is important (from a personal integrity, feeling-good-about-looking-yourself-in-the-mirror perspective) to always give it all you have — no matter what task you take on. But playing it safe and staying in a job beyond your own “sell by” date, is bad for you and ultimately bad for your company.

At the end of the day, the biggest risk that any of us has is that at the end of our lives we look back and regret. Being brave and stepping out to make change when it is time is a gift you give yourself- don’t miss the opportunity.