Gambling With Safety: Acceptable Risk vs. Tolerable Risk

“How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.”  ‑ Herbert Spencer

I once worked for an organization where senior managers freely expressed their differences of opinion. Often, they would dismiss a colleague’s position, saying, “That’s just semantics.” It became easy for me to conclude that semantics, the meaning of words and statements, were trivial. I know better now.

The meaning of words influences what we believe, and what we believe influences how we act. There are two words that we use when discussing risk that have an important influence on our behavior in regard to risk: acceptable and tolerable.

Acceptable vs. Tolerable

The two words are not exact synonyms, perfectly interchangeable. To accept something is not the same as to tolerate something. To accept something is to say yes, to embrace the thing. When you accept a gift, you are telling the giver of the gift that you welcome it.

To tolerate something is to bear a thing, to endure it. Tolerance is not about welcoming, but about putting up with a thing.  Salt-tolerant plants can survive in salt conditions, but they do much better in environments where the soil is not salty. When you tolerate your daughter’s boyfriend, you are not welcoming him, but enduring him for the sake of family harmony.

Risk

So it is with risk. Generally, we don’t accept risk, we tolerate risk. To talk about “acceptable risk” is to say that it is risk that is welcomed, embraced. Whether we really welcome and embrace that risk, those hearing our words will be inclined to believe that is what we mean. But we don’t welcome and embrace risk, we put up with it and survive it. Risk, then, is tolerable and that is the idea that we need to communicate.

It’s more than that, however. If we continually use the phrase “acceptable risk,” we will internalize it and at some point, actually come to accept risk. Our efforts to make the workplace safer will be compromised. We should never accept risk.

Risk Aversion

Being willing to tolerate a certain amount of risk is essential to accomplishing anything. The most rational approach to risk requires understanding what is at stake. Not just what can be lost and what can be gained, but also understanding how to weight each with the likelihood of losing or winning. Risk aversion is when, after weighing a loss with its likelihood against a gain with its likelihood and determining that the probability of gain outweighs the probability of loss, someone still refuses the risk. On the other hand, someone who refuses to buy tickets in a 50:50 raffle, where half the pot goes to the house, is not risk averse; they are simply rational.

Gambling

I’ve been to enough charity events with a 50:50 raffle to know that despite the certain knowledge that purchasing tickets is irrational, people still do it. Mostly, these are people who were going to donate anyway, but want a little fun on the way. So,there is really nothing at risk; it’s not really a bet. Especially given that many 50:50 raffle winners at charity events choose to donate their winnings back to the charity.

I mention gambling because it is the one activity that flies in the face of the idea that we don’t accept risk, that we tolerate it. Gamblers, especially compulsive gamblers, accept the risk—they embrace it and welcome it. In his book, The Story of B, Daniel Quinn explains it this way: “This is what every compulsive gambler is really trying to find out: ‘Are you with me, Lord, or against me.’ When [he] wins, he feels as divinely affirmed as any saint, and when he loses for days on end, he knows the dark night of the soul, and God has abandoned him.”

Let’s Not Gamble With Safety

Let’s all be more rigorous in our use of language, especially when talking about risk. The people we serve expect us to do no more than tolerate risk and to limit risk to a tolerable level. They don’t expect us to accept risk. When we accept risk, we are gambling. And when it comes to safety, no one wants us to gamble.