A Lesson on Faulty Risk-Taking
It’s impossible to plan for – or even imagine – every eventuality when assessing risk, but a pragmatic approach is never ill-advised. The folks at the Discovery Channel learned a hard lesson when a television stunt backfired, not delivering the much-hyped outcome viewers expected. Here are some takeaways for savvier business leaders.
In December of 2014, Discovery Channel aired a special called “Eaten Alive.” The program featured Paul Rosolie, a “naturalist” who planned to don a snake-proof suit and live through getting swallowed by a 20-foot-long anaconda. Apparently, the goal was to provide Rosolie the insider (pun intended) perspective of a snake’s digestive processes.
Anacondas this size can easily eat a large mammal, like a deer, so swallowing a human shouldn’t have been a problem. But it was. Even though programmers at Discovery designed a suit that would protect him against the snake’s fangs, compression and stomach acid, they couldn’t make Rosolie look appetizing to the giant frightened snake who didn’t want to eat something that looked more like the Tinman than his supper.
To overcome the first round of bad decisions that didn’t anticipate consequences, Rosolie decided to provoke the snake into eating him. That had the intended consequence of making the snake attack, but Rosolie didn’t anticipate how much he’d hate being constricted by an anaconda, so he called in the crew to rescue him.
The story doesn’t end there, however. The December 15 edition of People reported the Discovery Channel had filmed adventurer Rosolie being eaten alive by the snake on December 7. The magazine went to press too soon, as we now know. When the folks at People decided to report a story that hadn’t happened, apparently no one anticipated the embarrassment of a wrong headline.
Start to finish, this story is chock-full of bad risk-taking. What can leaders learn from the mistakes of the snake bait and the folks at the Discovery Channel?
- Ask “What guaranteed good will come of this?”
- Embrace optimism, but never at the expense of pragmatism.
- Explore worst-case scenarios.
- Base risk-taking on facts, not guesswork and probabilities.
- Gamble when the rewards outweighs the risks, not when you want the excitement of the unknown.
What if Rosolie hadn’t choked? The only way for him to have gotten out of the snake’s stomach would have been for the crew to kill the snake and cut him out. Though Rosolie and Discovery touted this stunt as a way to raise awareness about the Amazon and its biodiversity, we can all agree that didn’t happen. But a snake pit full of unintended consequences sure did.
Dr. Linda Henman is one of those rare experts who can say she’s a coach, consultant, speaker, and author. For more than 30 years, she has worked with Fortune 500 Companies and small businesses that want to think strategically, grow dramatically, promote intelligently, and compete successfully today and tomorrow. Some of her clients include Emerson Electric, Boeing, Avon and Tyson Foods. She was one of eight experts who worked directly with John Tyson after his company’s acquisition of International Beef Products, one of the most successful acquisitions of the twentieth century.
Linda holds a Ph.D. in organizational systems and two Master of Arts degrees in both interpersonal communication and organization development and a Bachelor of Science degree in communication. Whether coaching executives or members of the board, Linda offers clients coaching and consulting solutions that are pragmatic in their approach and sound in their foundation—all designed to create exceptional organizations.
She is the author of Landing in the Executive Chair: How to Excel in the Hot Seat, The Magnetic Boss: How to Become the Leader No One Wants to Leave, and contributing editor and author to Small Group Communication, among other works.
Dr. Henman can be reached at 
