X Marks the Spot

While I was attending the last few LA Galaxy games and looking at the giant half-pipe they'd built in the Home Depot Center parking lot, I knew I was going to write something about the X Games. I thought it might be something about how this event, now in its 13th year, had established and legitimized a whole new set of fringe sports (leading to inclusion in the Olympics). Or, maybe it would be about how this event had provided a more traditional marketing opportunity to reach the teen and post-teen demographic groups that are so difficult to reach through traditional methods. However, after the first 2 days of competition, there is only one image I have of the X Games and I can't get it out of my mind... Jake Brown's shoes "exploding" off his feet after his spectacular wipe out on Thursday night.

First of all, if you haven't seen the video, you have to watch it (and if you're like me and have seen it a dozen times, you'll probably watch it a few more times)...

Wow! I'm not sure what's so appealing about seeing that guy free fall 50 feet, but I can't stop watching. I think it has something to do with why we watch daredevils like Evil Knievel, NASCAR crashes and NHL fights. It's the extreme end of the sporting world, where guys who are talented enough, brave enough, or stupid enough, risk personal injury and push the edge of the envelope (while we watch from the safety of an armchair).

But what does any of this have to do with business? How do we interpret this? Beth Shuster, an LA Times staff writer, wrote about it from the perspective of a mother, and her lesson was "be careful, be really careful." I think the same lesson can be said for business. Jake Brown was trying a trick that was never done before in competition, but he was completely out of control. If you watched the BMX Bike Big Air competition on Friday, you saw several competitors back out before the final leap if they were losing control, or Mat Hoffman, a legend in the sport, decide to take his licks and limit his losses by falling on top of the quarter pipe (making it a 20-foot fall onto padding rather than duplicate Brown's 50-foot fall to the bottom of the ramp).

You need to take risks and you need to innovate in the business world, but you must know your limitations and measure and manage the consequences. Risking it all may make for compelling viewing, but it's just plain stupid as a management philosophy.