Want to take more content risks? Own the consequences

Let’s not beat around the bush. Pushing play on something bold, edgy or otherwise risky is scary as hell.

I reckon you don’t really work in content or social media if you haven’t nervously pushed send at some stage, hoping it won’t land the wrong way.

At many organisations, the structure and systems are set up to limit any kind of boldness in our approach. We call it a ‘sign-off process’, but mostly it’s there to make sure people with a low tolerance for risk have the opportunity to turn down our ideas before they can go out into the big bad world.

This process can be extremely limiting and frustrating, but it also serves another - more convenient - function in terms of shifting accountability for our content onto someone else. It means we get to blame the system and our bosses for being risk-averse and stifling us when our bold ideas get canned.

But there is another way forward, a solution that can allow us to take back more ownership of our content and social media outputs.

Unfortunately, it’s also a lot more scary…

Why people say no to content

Before we get to that alternative world, it’s worthwhile briefly examining why people say no to content.

In my experience, it’s often simply easier to not do something. If you do something, people might not like it. If you do nothing, perhaps you’ll get criticised for that too, but more often than not nothing bad will happen.

For middle and senior managers, nothing bad happening is a wonderful result, especially when they have multiple issues swirling.

Sometimes, not publishing that content is also just the correct decision - if it’s not on strategy or on brand, if it’s too expensive or resource-heavy (or appears to be), or if the internal or external political climates make it too risky a proposition.

In those cases, the sign-off process worked.

But other times, it can just be really scary to say yes. As social media expert Nana Crawford puts it:

“No one wants to take full ownership over saying yes to a piece of content when it’s either slightly risky or has a slightly different tone of voice, and it doesn’t feel safe.

“If it doesn’t feel safe, no one wants to be the person who goes, ‘Oh yeah, I signed that off’…”

Never underestimate the weight of accountability when it is on someone else’s shoulders. Or, as they say, “Everything is simple when it’s someone else’s problem”.

‘Why does this make you nervous?’

At a fundamental level, I think we should always be in the habit of asking questions of our decisionmakers, in order to better understand why they’ve made them.

If an article or social post gets rejected, we need to ask why, and we need to be as direct as possible (or as appropriate). This can be as simple as asking, ‘what about this makes you so nervous or cautious?’ or ‘what could we do to alleviate your concerns here?’.

Sometimes our bosses have additional information that we lack, which can help to explain their decision-making process.

Of course, asking direct questions can be extra difficult if there’s a clear power imbalance, relationship issue, toxic culture, or your boss is a control freak. You need to use your judgement.

But if you are comfortable asking questions, or getting someone else to, it can put the decisionmaker on notice that you’re not going to take ‘just because’ for an answer, and at the very least they’ll have to put more effort into explaining their decisions.

Accountability vs responsibility

A good way of looking at the issue in your setting is by asking: who is responsible for the task or duty of sign-off, and who is accountable for the consequences of the decision once it’s made.

If both the accountability and responsibility lie with your boss or someone else outside your team, it’s often going to be harder to get anything new or innovative over the line.

Instead, you could consider whether the responsibility for sign-off can still lie with your boss or a subject matter expert, but the accountability for the consequences of the post might better lie with you.

Here’s Nana Crawford again:

“What I try to remind people is that you can sign it off but ultimately when it goes out on the channel, it’s on me. So I can alleviate that burden because that is my job.”

If you want to be bold or take more risks with your content or on your channels, you might have to own more of the consequences that come from publishing.

And everyone around you in the organisation has to know this.

Scary? You bet ya. But them’s the brakes.

A glorified shit umbrella

There’s another piece to this that I think is worth discussing, and that is the manager’s role in supporting your accountability.

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, talks about creating “a space for teams to try things in a responsible way”.

“I really try and focus more on making sure me and the team are aligned on what we’re trying to do, and what success might look like. And I try … not to focus nearly as much on how we do it. I think that’s where you can unintentionally really stifle creativity as a manager.

“And when they do come up with something and I disagree with it, I like to let them test it anyway … I actively try to be like, ‘here’s my take, you get to decide whether you try this or not’.”

Which is why he describes his role as being a “glorified shit umbrella”.

“It’s like, let me create the space [to experiment]. If it works, I’ll try to push the credit down. If it doesn’t work, I’ll take on the accountability.”

In this way, the manager can shield the team from undue blame or criticism while fostering an environment of experimentation and innovation.

Again, it boils down to trust and courage.

Walk right up to the line

So, what might this look like in practice?

Whenever I have led teams, I’ve encouraged them to ‘walk right up to the line’. To touch the line, perhaps, but never to step over it. And to trust their judgement to know where that line is.

In my experience, people take this responsibility very seriously, but also thrive in that trust.

When Wellington City Council launched the country’s first local government TikTok channel, we deliberately left sign-off of content with the social media team, and they absolutely embraced that. As manager, I don’t think I ever saw a TikTok before it was live on the channel.

There were some hairy moments when the media got in touch about some of the more out-there videos. But the team were ready - they had thought long and hard about how they could justify the content as part of their pre-publication process. They took their accountability seriously, and owned the consequences of the content.

They also got to enjoy the spotlight when there was positive media coverage - it was their channel, they rightfully got the spoils.

If there’s a void, step into it

Ultimately, if you can’t convincingly explain the reasoning for taking a bolder approach, and you aren’t willing to put your neck on the line for it, it might not be the right approach.

But if the issue is more that no one wants to own the potential consequences for the approach, there is an opportunity for you to fill that void.

This will not be for everyone.

Taking on more accountability requires courage and conviction, but it can also lead to greater autonomy and impact in your role.