The Most Dangerous Person on Your Team Isn’t a Risk-Taker

Speaker A: 00:00:37

A friend of mine asked me a really good question the other day, and I gave it some thought, and I gave him an answer, and this is what it was. The question was, do you think that there's a difference between people that play to win and then people that play to not lose?

And that was like part A and then part B was. And if there is, do you think that a team can be made up of entirely play to win people, or do you need, like, a. A play to not lose balance within.

Within the organization? I actually, I gave it a lot of thought.

What he was drawn on was he said, I've seen you make moves in your business, you know, like, whether it's with. With staffing or with processes or business models, even when things are going okay, right? Like, even when things are going relatively well.

And when most people that. That he works with would, let's say, let it. Let it ride. Like, I. I'll make a. A move that has some risk associated with it where others wouldn't.

He said, you know, I associate that with more play to win. And then for people that just kind of coast as long, like, they only fix what's broken, and that's more of like a play to not lose.

After giving it thought, I said, you know, part one. Yes, I think that there is a substantial difference between play to win and play to not lose. Right? Like, and play to win mentality is just. It's.

It's more aggressive, right? Like, it's. It's like, hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna make this move even though it carries some risk and recognize that we're already doing okay.

But I. I see the upside, and I've done, you know, some. Some loose calculation in my head, and I think that the upside is higher than the downside, and that's the. The play dumb. Like, the.

The comparison I'd make is like, if you're in American football, it's like, who are the coaches that go for it on fourth down more? Right? Like, even before analytics and all that. Like, there were.

There were coaches that said, we're going for it, you know, on fourth and one or fourth and one and a half. And then there were coaches that were like, nah, like, take the. Take the three points or, you know, take the. The field position.

And I think that kind of. That's a metaphor for it. The play to not lose is just more of a. A defensive aspect. Like, it's. They. They calculate the risk. They.

They approach decisions that are associated with risk. And so I. I do think There's a different mindset however. I, I, I think with play to not lose, there's like two types, right?

Like there's a, there's a play to not lose that's born out of intelligence, risk mitigation and confidence. Right?

So they're the people in the organization or they're the people that are making the decisions that say hey, this move has risk that's associated with it.

I see the risk and I'm confident enough to speak up about the risk and recognize that yes, we have aggressive goals, but you need to, we need to temper those. We need to really take this risk. We need to respect it and they, they get there still well intentioned for the business growth.

And then there's play to not lose. People who are like, we'll call it type 2 that are, it's just who they are, right?

Like they, it's not like a risk calculation and, and maybe it is deep down, but it's more born out of a lack of self esteem, a lack of confidence, a, a constant perpetual fear that they can't shake.

And so like anything that has any risk that's associated with it is like, no, I, I, I don't think that we can do that and I don't really, I don't have the confidence in myself or in the organization to, to recover if we made that move and the, and, and it didn't work out the way that we wanted. Right?

Whereas like, I mean if you're playing to win, you go for it on 4th and 1 and you're like yeah, I know we, we may not make it but like we're, we're badass team and we'll get them next time. We'll bounce back. And the, in the play to not lose, type one says no fourth and one and a half.

Let's take the three because you know, we'll take the three.

And our defense has been playing well and this and that so I'm going to speak up, I'm going to be confident about it and play to not lose type 2 or like no guys, we'll, we'll just never make it. Like we're just a run game sucks and you know, we haven't had a good day. Like just nah guys, let's just punt it. Let's just play it safe.

And, and I think that that is, that's really important.

And I, this actually resonates as I, as I was thinking about the answer because as a CEO, my absolute best partner was always a type one play to not lose. Person, right? Like, it allowed me to, to push, it allowed me to be aggressive.

It allowed me to, to take some of the risks because I knew I had somebody strong, somebody smart that would, would weigh some of the odds and I wouldn't play dumb, right? Like I would still associate some risk. But you know, I trusted them to play the odds.

I trusted them to still have the best intention for the business, which was growth and not just like operate out of fear. And I trusted them to say something, you know, like they were going to say something out of confidence.

They were going to say something out of, you know, out of fear and complaining. And the guys will never going to make it. We're never going to do this. You know what I mean?

And as a CEO, my, I had a COO at one of my businesses who's still a friend of mine, but man, we fought like cats and dogs. Like, we would, we would argue, we would, like I would want to make a move on something. I would want it to be done in half the time.

I would want, like, we just gotta go. And he would say, listen dude, like, be realistic. Like, this is what's going to happen. You've got to associate this. We've got to plan accordingly.

I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm saying let's do it this way. And we would, you know, we would go back and forth.

And because of that dynamic, the organization had the leadership that it needed to make really strong bets to have confidence in the team to, to do some of the stuff that we wanted to do, like this aggressive vision and also have that tempered and balanced by somebody who's well intentioned to type one play, to not lose, type of person that says, hey dude, let's just, let's just play it right, right? And, and between the two of us, the organization benefited substantially.

And it may not have looked like it at the time, but we, and he would be like, hey, we've got to have a, we've got to build a process. Like, we've got to actually like put this in place. Like, they've got to be, you know, some order to this thing. And I'd be like it, man.

Like, we just got to go. And it's funny now because I'm such a process assistance guy, it's probably because he beat it into my head for, for so long.

Um, but we, it was an interesting, interesting dynamic. And I look at that and I go, okay, like that's, that's one of the, the big differences.

So then the second Part of that question is, okay, if there are differences, can you have a team of just like pure play to win people?

Well, you know, if you accept my definition or what I, what I, what I'm thinking of when I think of play to win and play to not lose is, you know, maybe really early on, like having a, having a small team that's all play to win might just be all the energy that you need to get going. Right? Like a, you know, startups like that where you've just gotta like push and push and push.

I, I do think stacking the deck with, with play to wins does get you going, does increase speed, does increase the velocity, does increase the likelihood of success early. Right. As opposed to like sitting around overanalyzing all day long whether you're smart or not.

Like sometimes you just gotta do with uncertainty and if you, you're a play to win mentality, you're gonna do it. So I think early on, sure.

As, as the organization grows and matures even a little bit though, I think that there's a, a really, a strong need to have that mentality balanced by a really solid type 1 type of person to, to associate they play to not lose type one to, to associate the necessary risk and the things that you need to be evaluated and just ensure that the organization stays sane. Right.

Because you know, you also, as you build a team, you start hiring people, you know, like people will burn out and they, if they're like, dude, we're always taking risks. Like, I just want some consistency. I want this. You know what I'm saying?

So I do, I think that there is a need for, for both as you, as you get going now.

The important thing is that the balance is, but that you've got the right people that are, have the right intentions and are doing what they're doing and for, for all of the right reasons. In other words, huge difference in an organization between play to not lose type one and play lose not to play to lose type two.

And it's because the play to lose type two person isn't, at least from my experience, is not just a play to not lose person on the field or in, you know, in, in the office, like that's who they are, right?

Like if, if they have low self esteem in the role that is born out of a root cause, that is a lack of confidence and a lack of self esteem, self esteem internally as a person. And that to me is a liability in a business.

Now I'm not like necessarily like, hey, everybody's got to you know, go to self confidence class and shit like that. But if you have, you know, people that are in the organization who are overly defensive, they're overly fearful, they're afraid to make moves.

They just want to play it safe. They want to, they stick with complacency. You know, hey, if it's, if it's okay, like we can just keep it.

I don't want to make any, you know, make any changes. They don't want to invest in big changes. They don't want to invest in, you know, making themselves substantially better or the, the business better.

And to me it's just like a toxic, a toxic energy that I don't want in a business at all, at any level. And it's not even just what they do, it's what they don't do. Right. Like a play to win person is going to always make moves. A player to not lose.

Type 1 person is still going to be pushing the business forward just you know, with, with a strong sense of balance. But this type of person, like the type 2 to me is just like a, it's what they don't do.

Like they're, they're the person that is not going to go to the extra effort so to make themselves better or to make the business better. And it's through the opportunity cost of that person within the organization that I think costs you long term. It was an interesting topic.

I don't, I would love, you know, feedback if you, if you have any on this or you know, in the comments and whatnot because the, I know that there's not just one definition of this.

I understand that there's different perspectives but after just giving it thought for, for one evening, this was my freestyle WhatsApp message back to him. And I hope it's valuable for, for somebody else. Adios.