Not willing to get out of your comfort zone just because you think, it’s not needed? Unfortunately, you are putting your company at greater risk!
To begin with, I would quote Michael Angelo, ‘The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.’
World-famous CEOs are the risk-takers, even though they already have amazing repute, customer satisfaction and so on. However, they don’t fear to try new things and stand out!
You can have tons of excuses to avoid innovation like your current products or services are still popular, even the new generation is attracted. Whether you are having great sales, outstanding margins, and whatsoever, you still have to think ahead, innovate, and look for the changing trends.
Why Businesses Try to Play it Safe?
With risk comes a certain degree of uncertainty. The unease that develops due to potential failure is terrible. What if you would lose the money invested? What if your idea would face rejection? What if you fail to achieve perfection?
Research shows that Asians are the world’s biggest risk-takers. In fact, risk leads to peak performance. Because when taking risks, your senses are more alert and mind focused. In fact, risk-taking behaviour increases our lifespan.
How important it is to Take Risks?
1. Eliminating Risks is the Biggest Failure
The business itself is a great risk at every step of its growth and development.
If you fear to fail, here’s what Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, said: ‘The only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.’ Innovation, now, is not simply an option to grow but a mandatory aspect for a business’s success. Innovation management consultants can make it easier for you to tackle a different aspect of your business.
2. Immediate Failure Can Be an Illusion
As a business owner, you should have the tolerance to face immediate failures. Because sometimes risks taken in new directions don’t pay off immediately. Instead, there can be long-term benefits such as new learning, which can lead to greater results in the upcoming project.
Here’s an example: Corning, Inc. took an apparently failed risk of developing a new business unit. Out of the failure was created a new product that brought hundreds of millions of dollars revenue.
What if You Have an Attitude to Play it Safe?
Changing the risk-averse attitude is quite difficult. But, there is still a way out.
What you can do is strategically plan out the risk being taken. Evaluate the potential risks and develop alternative strategies to minimize the risk. Is the product, service or investment worth the risk?
Be prepared of the worst-case scenario: what can possibly happen if you take the riskiest of the path? When your mind is prepared, there’s less certainty and fear.
To successfully take risks, here are 3 important tenets for a surefire success at the end:
- Examine all the possible options
- Take quite well-calculated risks
- Take multiple risks, to improve your chances of success
In this regard, innovation training is a great way to train and prepare your entire team for new goals and idea creation. Innovation management consulting is one way to develop an attitude to analyze, form blueprint, and innovate.
What are Different Methods of Identifying Potential Risks?
Several modern methods of identifying risk that you can train your entire team are:
- Brainstorming—when your team would brainstorm the potential risks involved in the project at hand.
- Flowchart Method—when the process of a project is laid out, the potential hazards, risks, dangers come to surface.
- SWOT Analysis—the method of identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of a project.
- Risk Questionnaire and Surveys
Basically, during the entire process of risk management, you can curb over-optimism towards the new idea. It prevents you from making irrational, hasty, or poor decisions for the company.
Innovation and Risk-Taking
Innovation and risk-taking are interlinked. Yet, innovation training is one of the best ways to train your employees or management to work creatively. The ISO 56000 can help you focus on all aspects of your business for innovation and upgrade.
Takeaways
To innovate and beat the competitive market, you would need to take a few risk, and deal with the fear of uncertainty. No matter what the outcome is, you will grow and learn through the process and become more confident to take new risks. This improves your chances of future success to a greater degree. For more information, feel free to get in touch with us.
