Last week during a catch-up with the principal of an award winning building company I was reminded of the importance of businesses finding the confidence and conviction/ will/ motivation to keep walking through open doors of opportunity – despite not knowing all of the consequences/ implications of what lies beyond at the time. This particular business has a long favourable track record of opening new doors of opportunity, which has served to now position them as one of the most highly regarded building companies in Hawke’s Bay.
Businesses must simply find more reasons/ justifications to proceed than not, if they are to discover fertile ground to achieve comparative advantages/ improved market share. Yet, in the risk averse world that we now live – where the quest to mitigate risk overshadows what once was a passion to explore and develop new opportunity – the majority of businesses that I’ve come into contact with in recent times are more concerned about coming-up with reasons why they “shouldn’t” take a particular course of action rather than seize opportunity by the horns and go for it.
To be clear, gains (financial/ operational/ market share, etc) accrue from seizing opportunity and bearing risk…NOT by avoiding opportunity and risk. To be equally clear, ‘opportunity’ and ‘risk’ go hand in hand…you can’t have one without the other.
My advice to business owners in this day and age is take reasonable measured risks wherever you can in the pursuit of identified opportunity, and surround yourself with “can do” people who are prepared to support your drive towards seizing opportunity. Leave alone those people who are preoccupied with identifying why a new course of action/ new direction/ new opportunity shouldn’t be embarked upon. These people are “sea anchors” who will only serve to slow your ship down.
If you conquer “fear” and “change resistance” on your ship and keep opening and moving through doors of opportunity, you will win. If you allow fear and change resistance to prevail, your ship is likely to stay on its berth and eventually be replaced by more responsive/ adaptive vessels that are more prepared to enter unchartered territories in the pursuit of new opportunity.