About Risk… NO PAIN NO GAIN!

  • July 12, 2021
  • Posted by: hpiadmin
  • Categories: Eccentric Entrpreneur, Leadership, Monday Message
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Monday Message from Jerry Houston, President and CEO of HPISolutions

On July 10, 2021, the HPISolutions team celebrated the beginning of our 29th year in business.  It is a testament to how fast life goes by to think that more than half of my entire career has been spent in this wonderful organization, working side by side with the greatest team I have been honored to work with, for clients who have become friends throughout the years we have served them.  Thank you all for the trust you have placed in us.  It also reminds me of the number of RISKS I have taken over these 29 years, and how important taking risk is to success.

 

I want to transition to the topic this month of Courage in Leadership.  Last week I talked a bit about what courage is, and this week I’d like to focus on the subject of RISK.  I wrote about this topic in my recent book, The Eccentric Entrepreneur (available on amazon), where I stated if you want to make an omelet you need to break a few eggs.  Running a business is not unlike making those eggs.

Taking risk should not mean taking unnecessary chances or throwing caution to the wind.  Rather, you need to be purposeful about identifying risks through methods such as brainstorming, interviews, checklists, analysis and worst-case planning.  Only in these ways can you MANAGE risk.  In order to manage risk, you must accept risk as a natural part of doing business, discover ways to mitigate risk, transfer risk to others (such as partners, insurance protection against losses, etc), and even exploit risk.  We exploit risk by examining what happened, what went wrong, and what new possibilities exist as the result of the risk situation that occurred.  Remember the mistake at 3M with a sub-standard adhesive, that was turned into the number one selling product at that time?  Perhaps you have some POST IT NOTES on your desk right now?

Risk is natural and will happen.  Yes, there will be some pain at times, but it is worth the pain when you receive the gain.

Have a Great Week!