Are You Using Risk To Your Advantage?

Risk Depends on Where you're Standing

You've just created a product or a service that is innovative and world-changing. You're receiving accolades, awards and everyone is talking about you for all the right reasons. Right now, risk doesn't look like risk- it's innovation. Now look back at the journey leading up to that: not knowing if your prototype would work, would demand be sufficient? Wouldn't it be better to just do what you've always done? That's what risk looks like and there were never any guarantees that it would work out the way you hoped.

Control v Innovation

We all know that with creativity and innovation comes risk. If we would like to create something new, something that's never existed before, then there will be no maps or reference points for where we're headed. How comfortable are you with that? What is the first area of your life or business you jump to in your mind when you think of risk? This tells you a great deal about yourself and your business- it's the part of your business that controls you and stops you becoming more. That's not to make it wrong, it's just information you can use to develop further.

What Is There Without Control?

So I'm not advocating neglecting your business, nor am I advocating doing things just for the fun of it. What I am inviting you to is the possibility that you can become responsive to risk. Imagine unexpected outcomes happening and, rather than going to a rigid reaction, you fluidly work with your team to use these outcomes to create something that has never existed before; that actually wouldn't have been possible without this spirit of adventure. You stop jumping to the conclusion of 'this is a mistake', and instead move to: how can we take advantage of this? Imagine there being a culture of 'risk-responsiveness' in your business, could anything ever floor you? And isn't this what we desire to encourage in this age of flux?

Going Beyond What's Possible Right Now

Looking at where you are right now and planning from there doesn't create innovation, it creates more of the same. If we're risk averse we're automatically looking at the smaller picture. Including the future in your planning, even if you've no idea what it's going to look like, is what allows creativity and innovation to flourish. So how do you do that?

• Keep asking questions of yourself, of your team, about where you'd like to be and what would like to be created, even if it bears no relevance right now. This gives team members creative expression and increases cohesiveness. What small steps can you take to include this vision in the here and now?
• Garner a multiplicity of view points around risk and how to respond. This flexes the risk-responsive muscle and builds teams that are adaptable and resilient
• Use your awareness and that of your team. In order to create newer and bigger you have to rely on something other than control, which can only produce limited results. Developing awareness of possibilities is the number one tool for tomorrow's business leaders