Calculated Risks and the Missing Competency of an Anticipatory Mindset

When you are starting a business or making a change internally as a business leader, many on the outside will repeatedly remind you how risky your choice is.

There are countless motivational books and quotes within them that reassure you it is because the doubting individual doesn’t want to see you fail, while others may be hoping you will fail out of jealousy of your bravery. They paint a picture of safety by staying the course in their lives, and by all means, they will protect and defend it to the very end.

But looking back on businesses from days and decades ago, historically, some of the biggest corporate and consumer catastrophes have been because a leader or organization refused to embrace change, get in front of disruption, or take a calculated risk, for a plethora of reasons.

But from their disasters, we can learn and appreciate the importance and necessity of taking risks in business, and likewise, understand how my Anticipatory Organization® Model allows you to do even better than calculate risk. It lets you more accurately predict what’s to come to stay ahead of disruption caused by stagnation!

For the sake of better understanding how risky “low-risk,” agile mindsets can be, let’s observe two organizations that chose to stand when the…