Taking Smart Risks
How sharp Leaders win when Stakes are high !!!
from Mgt is a Journey.com 6/14 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz
Too Little Risk – Playing it safe means that you’ve dis-engaged from meaningful challenges, aren’t pushing yourself or your organization to grow, and aren’t creating your future, but rather being passively dragged into it.
Too Much Risk – When you get over-confident, that’s when the Dragon pops up and bites you.
The right amount of Risk-Taking. Working with managers at all levels, I often find that their natural human behavioral preferences affect their ability to effectively lead their organizations where “risk taking” is involved. Their strength becomes their weakness. With some successful big-picture managers, they take un-necessary risks. These result-oriented managers act too quickly. Some rely too heavily on their social & adaptive skills; others rely too heavily ontheir intellectual ability to take quick, bold action and see it through. At the other end, are some successful process-oriented managers. They do not take enough risks. They rely too heavily on their low-key social & methodical data-gathering skills; others rely too heavily on their intellectual ability to carefully analyze situations and get things done right. All of these managers would do better in their “risk taking”, if they would borrow a little from each other.
Balanced Approach to “risk taking” is presented here. You’ll find much more in Taking Smart Risks than the usual discussion of not being paralyzed by fear, testing your ideas, & knowing your customer. You’ll also find relevant real-world examples from many industries that show smart risk taking in action. Finally, you’ll also find ready-to-use tools for planning, execution, & communication purposes such as 2 x 2 matrices & brain-storming templates that you can implement immediately to make your risk taking smarter. In this book, you’ll find a blueprint for taking smarter risks.
Five areas of the Authors book that I particularly enjoyed were the following:
- Something Worth Fighting For (SWFF)
- Five dangers of playing it safe
- Five steps to “derisk” risk taking
- Fail early, often, and smart
- Left-Hand Column Exercise
Both an Art & a Science , like most activities in business. Neglect the intuition & emotions that comes with your passion–your something worth fighting for–and you’ll see others become successful with your ideas. (You’ll feel like kicking yourself for not boldly moving with your ideas!) Neglect the thoughtful planning & execution that comes with living in the real world and you’ll watch your good idea “die a thousand deaths” before your eyes. (You’ll be left wondering why “what-should-have-worked”- did not work for you & your team!) It takes more than being a “risk taker” today, however to be successful. Now, more than ever we have to be “smart” risk takers!
Recommendation: Taking Smart Risks does an excellent job of bringing together the two sides of our brain to de-mystify risk. It’s intuitive & logical. There’s something here for anyone who wants to be smarter about how s/he takes risks. Since none of us will ever live in a world without risk, trust me when I say this book is a “must read”.
Comments: What are your thoughts about taking Risks?