5 Ways To Get Comfortable Taking Risks in Business
In today’s episode, I’m sharing…
How to feel confident and comfortable in your decision making.
How to be able to accept the risk associated with your decisions.
How to communicate with executive leaders about risk.
I love this quote by Cleo Wade which I think embodies how we want to feel when we are taking risks and making decisions in all aspects of our lives.
“If you want to feel empowered by all your decisions, you can’t just calculate your risks. You have to freely and totally accept the risks as well.” -Cleo Wade in Heart Talk.
Cleo goes on in the book to say that we must “apply the energy of acceptance” to our risk taking. When we do this, we approach decisions and risk with confidence and steadiness. When we do not do this and we approach risk with anxious energy, we cannot find trust and we are blocked from stepping into our full power.
So how do we come to accept and find confidence is our risk taking?
The best way to feel comfortable with risk is through understanding the data well.
One of the things leaders need to do is eliminate or reduce risk associated with any decisions they make. Decisions can have large and wide spreading impact. If you don’t fully understand the implications of the decisions you make, there can be very large, unanticipated down stream affects of your decision.
Here are 5 Ways to Get Comfortable Taking Risks in Business
Pull data:
Example of a project that requires data analysis to understand risk:
FTE requests - hiring more staff
Data to pull (a couple examples)
Staffing to workload levels - volumes vs. labor hours vs. how you’re staffing the schedule
Overtime hours worked vs. the cost of hiring a person to work those hours straight time.
2. Confirm the data is accurate and makes sense:
Run this data by your front line staff and front line leaders.
Ask:
“Gut check - Does this data feel accurate?”
“Can you drill down any further?”
“What are we missing?“
“What assumptions are we making with this data?”
“Doe this data accurately reflect current state well enough (doesn’t have to be perfect, but has to be close)?’
3. Determine the return on investment (ROI) and the rate of return — How long will it take to realize the return on investment?
Consider things you can measure, like:
Cost savings
Revenue/Growth
Reduced Staff Turn-over
Improved Key Performance Indicators
Customer experience (high rating on surveys)
Service Timelines
Employee experience (survey responses one-on-one meeting reflections)
Determine how long it will take to “break even” to the direct expenses or costs associated with your decision or ask. Executives are much more likely to approve requests when the ROI is realized quickly. In my experiences, 1 to 2 years is a quick rate of return.
Example: Project X costs $100K. How long will it take you to make $100K in savings or revenue?
4. Consider a pilot or small test of change before implementing your project on a large scale.
Some leaders will want to see proof of concept, or your ask may be too big and therefore include too much risk for them to feel comfortable approving it. Propose implementing the project on a small scale first — one client, one location, one employee.
Learn from the pilot, prove that what you implemented “worked” and created an ROI or will create an ROI with your tweaks and learnings.
Share your results with your leader, and then discuss expanding the project on a larger scale and making sustainable, systemic change.
5. Use the SBAR Technique to clearly and concisely communicate your message and ask, showcasing your data analysis.
You can download my free SBAR template here.
Situation - State the Problem.
Background - Share how we got to the problem (give context).
Assessment - Show data (graphics, tables, charts, etc.) that show your analysis and understanding of the problem, what happens if we do nothing, the ROI, and the rate of return.
Recommendation - State your request (what you think we should do to solve the problem).
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Thanks!
Kayla
