Tomorrow I will be presenting to Western Industrial Nevada here in Reno. WIN is a organization that draws the leadership of the business community in this area to its monthly meetings. The presentation will draw from my most recent book Business Lessons from the Edge.
Sometimes we are well served to express our thoughts briefly. It forces us to boil our ideas down to very few words.
Over the years, people have asked me for the brief version of how I recommend they address risk. The answer is among the lessons I will be presenting tomorrow to WIN: risk is like fire. Simple but hopefully clear.
As with fire, we have a choice of how we approach risk. If we forgo using fire, we will have a cold home, cold showers and many cold meals. If we use fire effectively, it makes our lives much better and more comfortable. And if we use fire poorly, we can get burned – literally.
All is the same for risk. If we just try to avoid it, we pay an onerous price. Utilized well, the rewards can be great. Used poorly, risk can extract a high toll.
Risk is like fire.
