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We are reproducing, with slight changes, an article that discusses popular
myths about the behavioral attributes of high-achievers. The objective is to
show that some inherent and constant disposition is not a defining variable
in achievement.
A recent article titled ‘Successful risk-takers’ advised readers to take
only moderate risks if they wanted to be high-achievers. Before you follow
the advice, imagine that you meet an old high school friend with whom you
used to do the most risky things, and you suggest repeating them for
old-times sakes. How likely are you to be told that he couldn’t because he
was now a respectable married man with a young daughter to care for? If you
have experienced the above, or find it plausible, you can conclude that the
amount of risk people take depends upon circumstances. And that conclusion
can be the starting point of an argument with the theory presented in the
article.
The article begins with the hopeful message that “achievement is neither a
gift of the gods, nor is it bestowed by the kind hand of fate, but is both a
part of one’s disposition and training.” But just a little later the author
shatters our hopes by telling us that high achievers are a ‘different type
of people.’
How so? First, he mentions that high-achievers are different from gamblers,
smokers, drug abusers and sexual deviants — “Gamblers and others take either
very high risks or very low risks; a high-achiever, research shows, is a
risk-taker who takes only moderate risks.” The theory stumbles right there
for surely you can think of many high-achievers who gamble, smoke, abuse
drugs or are sexual deviants.
What this suggests is that individuals are multi-dimensional and they often
take very different risks in different dimensions. History is full of high
achievers who literally smoked or drank themselves to death or threw away
everything for the love of a woman (and who am I to say that they ought to
have lived their lives differently; perhaps the one was the inspiration for
the other).
Second, the author cites evidence from experiments in which “it was observed
that high-achievers invariably took moderate risks in a given task which
they were expected to perform as opposed to non-achievers who either took
ridiculously high risks, or no risks at all to ensure that the task was
‘adequately’ performed.” A little reflection might convince you that such an
experiment does not establish the relationship between the degree of
risk-taking and the achievement but something quite different to that.
Since the author has used cricket to illustrate his thesis, let me use the
same sport to develop my argument. A good starting point is the author’s
statement that achievement is ‘both a part of one’s disposition and
training’. Take Hanif Mohammed (the famed Little Master) as a representative
of the cautious disposition and Shahid Afridi as a representative of the
aggressive disposition. Now let us postulate a task to be performed. Imagine
a one-day game between India and Pakistan — it’s the last ball of the game,
Pakistan needs five to win and Hanif has the strike.
What would you expect Hanif to do if the ball is a good one right on the
stumps? Play the ball on its merits in keeping with his cautious disposition
or give it the best he can muster? Now change the task to be performed —
again it’s the last ball of the game, Pakistan needs to negotiate it safely
to win on run-average and Afridi has the strike. What would you expect
Afridi to do if the ball is a long hop? Play it in accordance with his
aggressive disposition and try and hit it out of the ground or keep it away
from his stumps at all costs?
One may conclude from these thought experiments that a high-achiever is the
sort of judicious person who is able to assess how much risk he or she needs
to take to perform a task adequately. The high-achiever is not a robot
always taking a moderate risk but one who can adapt and go against his or
her natural disposition when the situation demands adaptation.
This brings us to the author’s example of Javed Miandad. Miandad was the
quintessential adapter, one of the most intelligent of batsmen who knew just
how much risk to take in any given situation. This ability was a major
contributor to his legendary achievement. The ability to assess the amount
of risk-taking required for the adequate achievement of a given task marks
the difference between a Miandad and an Afridi who has yet to learn the art.
What this tells us is that disposition is not a defining variable in
achievement. Both the naturally cautious and the naturally aggressive can be
high-achievers provided they are able to correctly assess how much risk to
take in any given situation. And this ability, a form of judgment, can be
learnt. High-achievers are individuals who match the risk to the situation,
not robots locked into a principle of moderate risk-taking no matter what
the conditions.
It is always dangerous to over-simplify a complex phenomenon and attitude
towards risk is a complex phenomenon indeed. The reader may easily realize
from his or her own experience that the same individual can take very
different risks depending on whether he or she is depressed or elated, angry
or calm. And risk-taking behavior changes as an individual’s circumstances
and responsibilities alter over time. Not only that, an individual can take
very different risks in different dimensions as, for example, the heavy
smoker who is extremely cautious with his finances.
Am I taking an injudicious risk by arguing with the author of the article?
What if he gets really mad and makes an omelette of me, as the legendary
Urdu writer Meeraji was wont to do to people who rubbed him the wrong way?
It won’t help me much if he comes to his senses later and realizes he took a
ridiculously high risk for no rhyme or reason.
Courtesy: Anjum Altaf
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Anjum Altaf