Robin P. Zander

Is this safe to try?

I’m frequently doing ridiculous self-experiments like eating just three ingredients for six months, sitting in freezing cold water, or selling a cafe on Craigslist.

When I first read the Respnsive.org manifesto and started talking about the “future of work,” someone offered me the question: “Is this experiment safe to try?”

That phrase has become a guiding principle for my personal or professional experiments since.

​As I wrote about recently, experiments can feel risky. “What if we tried…” feels like going out on a limb. That’s true for personal experiments like my cold plunge and for professional experiments like hiring a new employee or implementing a new process.

Change often feels scary, expensive, and difficult.

We think of change as a permanent state; experiments are big efforts that take a lot of work to get moving. And once an experiment has been started, it can’t be changed.

But actually, the opposite is true. Real change occurs through the small, day-to-day moments. Experiments can be tiny habits; tests in a slightly new direction.

Next time you’re trying out something new, ask yourself, “Is this safe to try?” Not for the rest of the year, or the rest of your life, but in this moment. Then try one small test at a time.

Until next week,
Robin

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