www.clearrisk.com

I am honored that Craig and his team at ClearRisk Inc. accepted one of my posts for publication in the ClearRisk blog. The post is titled “10 Steps to a SMB Risk Management Process“.

.

The Post’s Backstory

Over the last week or so, I’ve been contemplating the information I’ve seen on the web about business risk management. I’m pleased about the growing knowledge base that can be specifically applied by small and medium sized businesses. There is a downside, though. Most of the information is in snippets – blog posts of 400 to 800 words and tweets of 140 characters or less.  I could see where the seemingly random collection of information might be confusing or overwhelming for a business trying to figure out how to implement risk management. Thus the “10 Steps…” post.

.

I’m under no illusion that my one little post will provide all that’s needed to successfully implement a risk management process for your business. I do hope, however, that it provides a sort of checklist or roadmap you can use to step down the path without false starts and distractions. I know the list would have helped me when I started my first business.

.

Check Out the Website

If you follow my Twitter @tombragg stream, you will notice a lot of re-tweets of information from Craig. There’s a good reason – he puts out good content. I’d encourage you to follow @ClearRisk if you’re not already. And please take a few minutes to explore the ClearRisk website. It has a huge amount of great information, waiting just for you and that special business owner/manager in your life.

.

Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in ClearRisk. I haven’t received any compensation or freebies from them either. I just like the site and they let me play in their sandbox!

.

I look forward to reading your comments on the guest post. See you there!

.

Related articles by Zemanta

• ClearRisk Helps Regional Insurance Brokerages Compete with Multinationals (prweb.com)
• ClearRisk Levels the Risk Management Playing Field for Mid-Size Companies (prweb.com)
• 3 Reasons Small Businesses Don’t Manage Risks (thomasmbragg.com)
• 39 Examples of Small Business Risks (thomasmbragg.com)

Image by UnstablePixel via Flickr

It was a lightbulb moment. A few weeks back, a friend and I were talking about  the tendency of some companies to analyze and hold meetings, hold meetings and analyze, discuss, research and discuss again without taking any action. We were interested in the root cause of the perpetual analysis (a.k.a. analysis paralysis). Was it an extreme desire for precision and perfection? Or was it a fear of making mistakes?

.

At first thought, it would seem that either approach would be ok for a business, right? We talked about the differences between a company striving for perfection vs. a company striving to avoid mistakes. One is a team working towards a positive result. The other is a group striving to avoid a negative result. It turns out that there is a big difference…

.

The first company will have a tendency to pull together as a team of teams and achieve that “synergy” all us managers talk so much about. Efficiencies will be high. Problems will be seen as “challenges” and “opportunities”. Morale will be strong. Conversations will be motivating. People will be having fun at work as they innovate and achieve together. Setbacks will be discussed, learned from and forgotten. The overall energy will be positive and customers will notice.

.

The second group will be quite different. Each person will be working for themselves, focused on being blameless for any issues. The team will be inefficient and somewhat dysfuntional. Problems will be seen as “obstacles” and “showstoppers”. Morale will be poor and stress levels will be high. Conversations will be draining and everyone will be counting the minutes until quitting time. Innovation will be non-existent. Setbacks will become crises, dwelled upon and never entirely forgotten, but there will be no lessons learned. The overall energy of the company will be negative – even if the company itself is successful – and customers will notice.

.

How many companies out there have evolved into a ‘mistake avoidance’ culture? I bet the number would scare us. I would also bet that you could name two or three examples right off the top of your head. (It’s not hard to pick those companies out when you’re looking.) Is your company one of them? If so, what action can you take right now (and I mean right this minute…) to start to change?

.

Might I suggest that you give yourself and your employees permission to make mistakes?

.

p.s. Remember, my friend, as I’ve written before: there can be no success if there is no risk. Dare I say there can be no success if there are no mistakes? I dare. Please share your thoughts…

Related articles by Zemanta

• Culture of Failure? (ericbrown.com) <very good post>
• 4 Steps to Recovery (theengagingbrand.typepad.com) <will be helpful if you take me up on my suggestion>

If you will allow me to indulge, I want to take a step away from the uber-tight focus on risk management for a minute. I was on a tele-conference today. During the conversation I shared that my dream is for my company to evolve into a “sales organization” that does engineering services rather than an “engineering organization” that does sales.

.

On the other end of the call, Paul asked me what I meant. I’ve been thinking about the topic ever since and I’d like to share my thoughts with you. The distinction isn’t limited to only engineering services companies. It applies to every type of business out there.

.

So what is the difference between a “sales organization” that does engineering and an “engineering organization” that does sales? The biggest difference is attitude. Think about it for a minute. We have 150 software engineers that work on projects for our customers. Most of them have some type of customer interaction every day. Currently, that interaction is engineer to engineer, because we are an engineering company.

.

But what if our software engineers considered themselves technical sales people? Now we would have 150 sales people interacting with the customers every day. The interaction would be between sales and engineering, because we would be a sales organization that does engineering.

.

“But how would that interaction be different?”, you might ask. Good question – thanks for asking! The difference would be in the conversations. An engineer is going to ask engineering questions, leading to a very technical, detailed and specific exchange of information. The conversation will be objective, logical and unemotional. Engineers have implied limits on the expression of “warm and fuzzy” so there will be no enthusiasm (other than geeky excitement over a novel technical approach), no empathy or caring conveyed. The relationship will be one dimensional. (Disclaimer: I’m a degreed engineer who’s come over to the dark side of management.)

.

A sales person doing the same call (same agenda, objective, etc.) is also going to ask engineering questions, but they will ask more. They will ask about customer satisfaction, upcoming potential projects, personal impressions of our company and of our competitors. The conversation will be more qualitative, subjective and emotional. There will be no implied limits preventing our employee from expressing enthusiasm, empathy or caring. The relationship will be multi-dimensional and (more importantly) personal.

.

Do you own a manufacturing business? Do your production people ever interact with customers? Do you own a retail business? Is there anybody in your company who doesn’t interact with customers at least a few times? What about restaurants? Get my point? Every employee of every business will probably interact with customers at some point. How do you want that interaction to play out? What type of attitude do you want your employee to exhibit?

.

Customers buy products and services because of emotions and relationships. Sure there is some logic and quantitative analysis involved, but the primary driver is emotion. So given that fact, what you would rather be running: a sales organization that is comfortable in the realm of subjectivity, emotion and relationship building; or an engineering organization that is limited to the objective and quantifiable?

.

My dream is to work for a sales organization that does engineering (or retail, or manufacturing, or professional services). I want every person in the organization to believe in our product and speak with passion about it. I want every person to feel like a salesperson.

.

Do you work for a sales organization that produces product/services or do you work for a product/services company that does sales?