Calculated Risk

I recently read a blog where the writer used the term “calculated risk.”

Do you know how you calculate risk? Do you use a repeatable process to calculate risk? Have you evaluated your process to ensure you get feedback from various perspectives?

If not, then your calculations of risk are likely myopic in a human perspective and prone to your biases. If so but the organization you are in is operationally stunted by poor leadership growth then you will land on poor decisions.

You cannot lead by following others all the time. There is a statistical safety in numbers but that’s definitely not going to produce innovation or leadership. Sometimes a person or organization must be bold and have vision and endure difficult circumstances they cannot control. There is no easy button for this. Idiots have cornered the market at times and wise people have faltered due to circumstances.

Risk is about understanding implications and possibilities. It is not about controlling anything other than your choices.

In the professional world, one known way to calculate risk is the FAIR method although there are others. Choosing one and then working to mature it can bring stabilization, visibility, and repeatability to decision making. Thinking that anyone else will do this for you is a mistake. You and your organization’s decision ARE what define you from a human perspective. It’s what makes your business different from your competitors. You may both follow the same frameworks and gross processes but your implementation and the operations that flow from it should endure scrutiny, growth, and maturing.

I have often seen people who don’t understand what this costs or how to do it yet they use the same language I would to describe risk because those phrases are well-crafted. But if the hard choices don’t align with the language, it’s just a windchime in a hurricane.

Just a thought because I saw a blog directed to people whom I would believe probably haven’t been given or gone to find much training in how to calculate risks and it struck me as disingenuous.