Friday 22 March 2013

Risky business is good business.

Risk is not negative.

It simply means we don’t know what the future holds.

Does this mean things will turn out good or bad?  Who knows?

If all risk is negative then the future is bleak.

A business must keep moving forward or it will die.

This requires strategy.

There is no right or wrong strategy.

What there are is a set of compromises for each strategy.

The key to choosing the right strategy is to focus on the compromises.

The right strategy has the compromises that a business is prepared to accept and is ready to deal with as they arise, in order to keep moving forward.

If a business does not allow compromise to get in the way, how can the strategy go wrong?

This is what many businesses confuse with risk.

They move forward with a strategy unaware, unaccepting or unprepared for the compromises that came with it.

But it’s getting harder.

The world is changing rapidly and business has no borders.

External forces beyond our control are changing the game for many businesses.

If the game changes, so do the compromises.

Many businesses aren’t aware the compromises for continuing to do the same thing have changed and this is what’s causing them problems.

Avoiding this situation requires innovation.

If we are aware of the compromises for doing certain things, then we are aware of when they change.  However, if we now have less control over choosing a new course of action that will change the set of compromises, then we must innovate to start a new game.

So a simple recipe for success might look something like this:

  • Embrace the future.
  • Keep innovating.

What's your recipe for success?

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