Does your organization actively avoid taking risks? If so, you may already be falling behind competitors & losing touch with your customers & your markets. Keeping up in today’s markets requires ongoing innovation, which involves a certain amount of risk. In today’s hyper-paced markets, one new product mistake or market miscalculation can put a company so far behind that it never catches up or put it out of business altogether. As a result, many companies play not to lose rather than playing to win. And many organizations have cultures that don’t support risk-taking. Management decisions & ways of working focus on maintaining the status quo over exploring new possibilities. Rather than avoiding risk, companies can learn how to manage & mitigate it by following 5 basic rules: Rule #1: Accept the need to take risks. Start by understanding that what made your organizational successful in the past will not necessarily do so in the future. In fact, if you do business in markets & industries that move very quickly, you can count on it. The faster your industry moves, the more risk you may need to take. Rule #2: Compare the risk versus the expected return on investment. Unless it’s a matter of survival, don’t bet the farm on one new product or initiative. It’s ok to take a chance on a long shot every once in a while. But overall you’re better off taking measured risks where the potential upside far outweighs the damage to the company should the initiative fail. Pause long enough to truly calculate risk & plan minimizing or mitigating strategies for it. Rule #3: Make decisions based on data, not thought bubbles. Many innovation efforts fail simply because management doesn’t take the time to gather enough data. Instead, they forge ahead based on what they think they know about the market & customer needs, and then wonder why it goes over like a lead balloon. Never take a risk that’s not supported by data. And make sure you collect both confirming & disconfirming data so you don’t just seek the data that proves your idea right and miss all the other data that is out there. Rule #4: Do a reality check. Do you have the people, skills & organizational systems & processes in place to make the initiative a success? If not, can they be brought into the organization without draining resources away from other critical areas? If the answer to both of these questions is no, move on to a more feasible project or reallocate resources. Rule #5: Always have a plan B. Before taking any risk, pretend that it has already failed, & brainstorm the reasons why. Then create a plan B & C, & D should any of those reasons come to pass. No matter how well planned, it’s the rare business initiative that unfolds exactly as expected. When you think about potential hurdles ahead of time, you prepare yourself & your team to deal with them effectively as they arise. Higher levels of risk is just one of the many things leaders have to addr

1. Does your
organization
avoid risk?
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2. Holly G. Green
the architect of pause™
&
thinking to thrive expert
www.TheHumanFactor.biz www.MoreThanaMinute.com

3. Don’t just play to not
lose. Play to win.
You have to have
some failure to know
you are pushing
hard enough!
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4. Learn to manage & mitigate risk:
1. Accept the need to take
risks
What got you here, won’t get
you to the next place.
www.TheHumanFactor.biz www.MoreThanaMinute.com

5. Learn to manage & mitigate risk:
2. Compare the risk vs. the
return
Take measured risks where the
return outweighs any potential
fallout.
www.TheHumanFactor.biz www.MoreThanaMinute.com

6. Pause long enough to truly
calculate risk & get intentional
about minimizing or mitigating
actions
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7. Learn to manage & mitigate risk:
3. Make decisions based on
data
Gather confirming &
disconfirming data.
www.TheHumanFactor.biz www.MoreThanaMinute.com

8. We don’t believe what we see…
We see what we already
believe…
…and we seek constantly
to prove ourselves right
so actively try to
prove yourself wrong
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9. Learn to manage & mitigate risk:
4. Do a reality check
Do you have
what you
need in
place?
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10. Learn to manage & mitigate risk:
5. Always have a plan B.
Pre-think what could go wrong
& prepare.
www.TheHumanFactor.biz www.MoreThanaMinute.com

11. Manage & mitigate risks.
Contact
Holly@TheHumanFactor.biz if you
want to win in business!