After I decide, how much can I still influence the outcome?
Take an AI solution for a customer. I may not have the product fully ready. There may be uncertainty around what needs to be built.
But I can still work the outcome. I can spend more time understanding the problem. Change the approach. Bring in experts. Build, test, learn and keep pushing until we get closer to what the customer needs. My effort, judgement and persistence genuinely shape how it turns out.
That makes me more comfortable taking the risk.
Now compare that with buying an investment because I expect the price to rise. Once I have bought it, there is very little I can do to influence what happens next. It is out of my hands.
Both decisions involve risk. But they are not the same kind of risk.
So before a big decision, I don’t think in terms of risk alone. I think about whether I have the leverage to improve the odds of succeeding.
The less influence I have afterwards, the more careful I want to be before I decide.