Why It's Important to Manage (and Ski) Out of Your Comfort Zone

If you ski, remember back to any time you decided to try a hill with a higher difficulty level than you’d skied before. The first time you went down (probably doing a "yard sale,” i.e. leaving all your gloves, skis, hat, goggles in the snow as you went), it all seemed so overwhelming. It was steeper, faster, and harder than you expected. It was also a little embarrassing, with plenty of other skiers blowing past you. But every time you returned to the hill, you got a little better, things started to slow down, and eventually you were one of those people flying past the newbies. Fact is, getting out of your skiing comfort zone is a big part of getting better at skiing.

I use a similar principle with my company. Whenever we see a big, new opportunity, we try to lean into it quickly, put ideas out there, listen to the reaction, and adapt. But at least once a year, we go after something even more aspirational, something that takes us well out of our comfort zone. In selecting this "big initiative," we follow a few simple rules:

• It has to be a real opportunity for our business.

• It has be an area where we’re not playing and where we lack the necessary skills and experience.

• Better yet, it’s an area where nobody is playing, and nobody has the necessary skills and experience.

• We have to throw the ball far. If we find disbelief in our own ranks, or better yet in our senior management, we know we’re on to something.

• We do it in the open. We invest in it, resource it, talk about it, and roll it out for our clients.

The last point is maybe the most important. If you’re doing a skunk works project, who cares if you fail? If we’re going to fail with our big initiative, we’re going to do it in front of everyone. There are two reasons for this. First, we want our team to develop a thick skin about trying new things (fear of failing can lead to paralysis). Second, people work much harder on a project that everyone is going to see than one that’s tucked away.

So what happens if we don’t do well with our big initiative? That is the beauty of it. This sort of exercise is still valuable even if it doesn’t go as planned. Why? We live in a disruptive world, and as much as we’d all like to think that we can anticipate any eventuality, that’s just not the case. My company, Possible, is a digital agency helping brands navigate an ever changing landscape. So we don’t just want to be better at a particular platform or technology, we want to be better at getting better at platforms and technologies. By taking ourselves continually out of our comfort zone, we can react faster when the unexpected comes.

So let’s get specific. Last year, our big initiative was Local, trying to develop our own take on how brands can succeed on a range of local platforms. Of course, this isn’t the place to brag about our success, but I’m happy to say it went pretty well. This year, I’m going to invite you all to follow our next big initiative: building a full-fledged Linkedin marketing practice, including B2C, in our agency. That’s right. We’re going to try to figure out how brands can target consumers, and not just business consumers, on this social network.

I’m sure a big percentage of the digital marketers reading this just went from nodding their heads to shaking them. Why? Because when B2C marketers talk about social media platforms today, Linkedin isn’t part of the conversation. It’s great for networking, hiring, and lead generation, but not so great for directly reaching consumers.

But let’s go back to our principles. As part of our big initiative, we want something difficult. We want something nobody knows how to do. Something that doesn’t make sense to everyone. Something that may create discomfort and disbelief. And something that’s a real opportunity. Building a Linkedin practice fits all of these perfectly.

In my next post I’m going to talk about the opportunity and why so many good opportunities tend to be difficult. From there, we’ll discuss the steps needed to take to take on something like this. In the meantime, get out on the slopes with your family. And remember, you’re not going to get any better if you don’t try that bigger hill.