Risk in Business

As humans, it is in our biological instinct to avoid risk. We touch a hot pan and our senses- the pain- tells us we must never do that again.

Unfortunately for human beings, those who wish to succeed may face a perplexing dilemma that nearly defies basic instinct. Generating and creating business requires taking risk. 

This is one of the distinctions that I attribute to a successful career as both an executive and a consultant.  People often associate risk with a breakdown or a crisis. A breakdown or a crisis, however frightening it may be, provides an opportunity for one to take a stand; something that inevitably puts you at risk. If you simply wait for the moment of breakdown or crisis before you take a stand, you will just be dealing with the incoming breakdowns and your time will be spent reacting to today’s crisis or drama.  

In my business I am committed to a future that expands the business and is measured by revenue and profit. I don’t wait for a breakdown or a crisis to happen for me to take a stand for a future, and act. 

I create a future of my own and then go to work on fulfilling that future. Sometimes I don’t have a future in mind but I always have a goal. It is when I am standing in a “created future” that I am at risk.  A “created future” is one invented from the future, not from an extrapolation or extension of what the past says is possible. It is inspiring. It pulls you into it and shapes your actions. 

In a sense I create my own risk. This is not a function of a breakdown or a crisis. It is function of my own doing. I did it, versus something being done to me. 

The risk may show up differently at different times. It can show up as exciting and freeing or equally fearful, burdensome or suppressive.  Sometimes it shows up as all of those things. When I stand in I created it, I find that what I am present to is not actually fear or pain, but rather freedom. It is in the space of this freedom that I remind myself that I have a choice. I chose to create the risk in which I now find myself. When I can acknowledge that choice I can disappear the view that risk occurs as threatening and be left instead with the experience that expanding the business is my choice and my self-expression. 

So part of being a leader and great manager entails not only taking big risks, but actually creating them, and even welcoming them.

Sometimes people think that creativity is only limited to artists. Personally, I think people can be very creative in business. In my company I stand for the expansion of the business as my self-expression.  

I create a big business future that is unprecedented and not predictable, and then I work on fulfilling that future. The fulfillment of that future requires being creative and I enjoy being creative, as well as the challenges that come with living a creative life. 

RISK = BUSINESS

NO RISK = NO BUSINESS

RISK = CREATIVITY = BUSINESS

NO RISK = NO CREATIVITY = NO BUSINESS 

If you don’t take a risk, if you don’t expand the business, then somehow you are not standing for the future. Whether the reason for not expanding the business is extrinsic or intrinsic, somehow you are not standing for fulfilling the future. 

If you run away from a risk, or if you make it too significant or scary or you are afraid to take a risk because you might fail or might not look good or let someone down, you are in the wrong context. You are in some disempowering conversation from the past. 

The process is a learning process with a lot of trial and error. It has not been a straight line from A to B. It has been a zigzag of dealing with breakdowns powerfully. Well-met breakdowns make up the pathway to accomplishments. 

To expand a business takes hard work, discipline and creativity. The access to this is speaking a “created future” that includes an expansion in the business. What comes along with that word or promise is, (you guessed it) risk. For some people, it is a challenge to promise expanded financial growth and for others, it is suppressive. 

Promising to expand the business leaves you and the company with a certain tension or pressure. Most managers don’t have a powerful relationship with pressure or tension. But if you did, you would take on your people and grow and develop them to fulfill something that was promised, unprecedented and not predictable. 

I assert that if you are not expanding your company, you will not be happy or fulfilled. 

RISK = CREATIVITY = EXPANDED BUSINESS = HAPPINESS AND FULFILLMENT 

YOU NEED TO LOVE BEING CREATIVE AND LOVE THE RISK THAT PLAYING THE GAME OF BUSINESS IS.