Managing significant risk challenges business owners

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Updated: November 27, 2011 10:53PM

This past week I had a discussion with Steve Dalton, Business Development Manager for Golden Technologies in Valparaiso, a firm dedicated to providing tailored and sustainable solutions where technology is leveraged to improve the performance of people and processes. Our discussion quickly turned to what is needed in 2012 for businesses to recover from the economic doldrums of the past several years.

Dalton’s response to how to catapult businesses and the economy in general centered around these two words – risk taker. For it is those who take risks, who gamble with the unknown, who go where no one else has gone before, that provide the economic spark required for everything from hiring to innovation.

Risk takers are always present, but with the uncertainty of the past few years specific to additional government compliance to a cultural view that capitalism is bad, many of those who took risks in the past have left the marketplace. And from Dalton’s perspective, this is a critical missing factor in energizing the local to national economies.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one risk taker was John Pierpont Morgan (JP Morgan) who infused his own capital to rescue the US economy and government on two separate occasions. There are many other risk takers in the annuals of business history, but currently these individuals seem fewer and farther between.

Risk is a frightening word especially for many in business. Companies are doing their best to hold on by their finger tips less alone committing their limited and constrained resources to an unproven strategy or an unknown solution.

Yet to significantly grow does require risk by changing how things are currently being done. For risk is all about how you as a small business owner or professional or your organization embraces change.

One of my clients with two manufacturing facilities (one here in Northwest Indiana and the other in Mexico) took a significant risk several years ago during the down economy by purchasing a capital intense Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software system. His profits took a significant hit not only due to the initial expense, but to running both systems for almost a year to ensure the new software worked. Now his operations are running leaner and meaner in that all resources especially his people are being optimized to their fullest capacities. He could have hunkered down, but he saw into the future and realized the necessity for taking this calculated risk.

Are you forward thinking leader? Are you looking at the same landscape with the same old eyes or with new eyes? What will you be doing differently in 2012 to move your business and your people to that next level? In other words, what risks have you ascertained are worth the effort?

Risk for some crazy busy entrepreneurs becomes the springboard for venturing forth into new frontiers, trail blazing a path where few have gone before. (Do you hear the theme of Star Trek playing in your brain?) For example, these are the folks with the QR codes on their business cards to the mobile ready websites that can handled e-commerce or to technology integration that allows people to do what they are good at even better.

Now some say change is good, you go first. Those who go first are the risk taking, forward thinking leaders who are willing to take a calculated chance and truly do not allow the fear of losing keep them from moving forward. This risk taking behavior recognizes fear and realizes that much of the fear is truly false evidence appearing real.

As you look to your 2012 goals, consider adding a risk goal be it offering a new product, challenging your sales team or being mobile ready. For as the great business philosopher Yoda has said “Do or do not, there is no try.” Now is the time to push the envelope, to be that trail blazer and to make 2012 not a great year, but an exceptional and memorable one.

P.S. Shout Out: For a great breakfast or lunch, LePeep on North Calumet in Valparaiso offers a warm and cozy ambience and excellent food and service. In Lake County, Grand Park Café on Mississippi in Merrillville also provides tasty breakfast, lunch and dinner selections for those busy mall shoppers.