Risk. It’s a concept that infiltrates more business and personal conversations than you can imagine.  We manage risk, deflect risk, accept risk, analyze risk, cut risk and absorb risk. Heck, we even play Risk.  But what does taking a risk really mean?

 Start with a simple definition: risk is the quantifiable likelihood of loss or less-than-expected returns.

 So if you risk, you might lose. And the reality is that nobody likes to lose, especially in front of their peers.  Losing doesn’t look good and it doesn’t feel good.

 How far do we go to avoid losing? 

When an outcome is tangible, sometimes public and most often embarrassing it’s tempting to run the other way.  And even if you miss a tremendous opportunity by playing it safe, who’s to know?  Lost opportunity can just silently drift by, with nobody being the wiser. No public shame, no negative judgments of competence issued.  Just safety and comfort, thank you very much.

 But avoiding risk doesn’t make for great communications.

Take Apple computers, for example. In my humble opinion, the greatest ads ever run were the 1997 “Crazy Ones” series developed for Apple by Chiat/Day.  They anchored the Think Different campaign – which is credited with restoring  Apple’s then-lagging reputation.

The commercials featured black and white film footage of the “Crazy Ones,” people like Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon and Gandhi. The voiceover was performed by actor Richard Dreyfus and the script came from Chiat/Day’s Craig Tanimoto.

The significance of the spot is much bigger than marketing or brand development: it’s about inspiring courage.  It’s also about client and agency pushing themselves to a point of vulnerability because taking that risk was fundamental to achieving truly great things.

“Crazy Ones” risked failure because they knew it could lead to significant success.

On any given day in agriculture we make decisions that favor managing risk and mitigating failure.  But hopefully we also make other, tougher decisions — accepting failure as a possible outcome.

Because we know that taking risks is OK, right?

Scott Samoleski is Team Lead at AdFarm. He takes more risks than most of us – and wins more often than he loses.