Risk and Generosity

I had the opportunity to attend a high school graduation this weekend,
something I haven't done in a long while. After much blood, sweat and
tears, my friend's daughter graduated Houston's High School for the
Performing and Visual Arts, one of the city's most competitive magnet
high schools. What was so impressive about the graduation ceremony was
not only the performances by the music, dance and theatre graduates and
slide shows by the visual arts and theatre tech kids (being, after all,
an arts high school), but also the effusive and warm response of their
peers in the audience. After all, they all have been in the spotlight at
one time or another during their high school careers and appreciate the
risk-taking that making art requires, the vulnerability and exposure
resulting from putting your passion out there on the stage or in the
gallery for everyone to see and to judge.

Why did I find this so inspiring? Well, in a workplace undergoing change
(and where is this not happening?), I see colleagues who are passive and
reluctant to make suggestions or question assumptions. It seems safer to
sit back and complain than to risk having your ideas slapped down.
Something these students have learned that we seem to have forgotten is
that it's easier to put yourself out there on a limb when everyone else
is doing it too, that risk-takers need company. So, I invite you
potential risk-takers lurking in the shadows to come out and join me. I
could use some company out here on this limb. . .

HSPVA: http://www.hspva.org/dhtml/