If you’ve been keeping score at home, you know that the risk management process has three basic steps – 1) identify risks and opportunities, 2) evaluate the risks and opportunities and 3) plan for risks and opportunities. However, there is some work that needs to happen before you get into the nuts and bolts of managing your risks.

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This week let’s talk about what needs to happen before the process begins. There are some basic activities: inspiration, motivation and preparation. Over the last few months I’ve written several posts dealing with the “pre-activities”. Let’s take a look at each of them.

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(If you want to skip to the end and see the entire list for all 3 steps, check out my page “How to Manage Business Risk”.)

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5 Reasons You Should Care About Managing Risks

One of my earliest, and most popular posts. I briefly discuss five reasons a business owner should want to learn about and practice business risk management. This post sets the stage for why risk management makes sense for you and your business.

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I Want to Manage My Risks. Where Do I Start?

In this post, we answer the questions that need to be answered before stepping into ‘risk identification’ – the first step in the risk management process. What is a “Risk”?, Where do risks come from? and How do I find my risks?

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Fear Not Risk, My Friend. Master It!

This is one of the posts I am most proud of.  It discusses how there must be risk in order for there to be success – and not only in business. I share  some very personal examples with you.

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Should You Go Formal or Informal?

Processes can be formal or informal. There are times when one type is more appropriate than the other. I write about the differences between formal and informal and how your risk management process should always be formalized.

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The Value of Risk

Risk can impact a business in many ways but it is often hard to put a hard value on it. This post presents a real-life example where a company made a critical decision that clearly shows how risk can have a very real value, to your business as well as to your customers.

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Permission to Make Mistakes

A company or organization with a ‘mistake avoidance’ culture is striving to avoid negative events (i.e. mistakes). An organization that strives for perfection but accepts mistakes is working to create positive events. The two groups have very different characteristics that will lead to very different outcomes.

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10 Steps to a SMB Risk Management Process (guest post for ClearRisk Inc.)

I wrote this post to layout the roadmap for small and medium-sized businesses that are just starting to set up their risk management process. There are some key events that have to happen before you jump into brainstorming about the risks and opportunities facing your business.

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I hope the posts above provide some useful information, motivation and inspiration for you. I would love to hear your thoughts, comments and suggestions. Please leave comments on this post or on the individual posts above. I read and reply to every one of them.

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• Backstory – Guest Post at ClearRisk.com (thomasmbragg.com)
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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?

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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…

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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.

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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.

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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?

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

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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…

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In my opinion, few business people recognize that risk has a very real (and substantial) value. The lack of recognition is understandable – it’s hard to put a convincing numerical value on a risk that may or may not occur. But every now and then, an event comes along that provides a quantified glimpse of risk’s value. I was a witness to one of those rare events. Here’s the story…

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A high tech manufacturing company, let’s call them “WidgetCo”, won a very large and very challenging contract for a new product. Life was good at WidgetCo. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for WidgetCo’s product development to fall significantly behind schedule and exceed budget. WidgetCo’s  management decided that they needed to outsource part of the development effort to an outside company.

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WidgetCo put together a very attractive bid package. Many companies submitted aggressive bids in an attempt to win the business. As WidgetCo reviewed the proposals, they soon realized that some of the companies did not fully understand the scope of the project or just plain low-balled the estimate in an attempt to win the business. The company whose proposal was most complete and demonstrated a full understanding of the task at hand was also the most expensive – more than 20% higher than the next lower bid. WidgetCo management had a problem.

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So how does the story end? After much thought and discussion, WidgetCo selected the most expensive proposal. Why? Because they saw that proposal as the lowest risk solution to their problem. WidgetCo paid a 20% premium to reduce their perceived risk. They valued that risk to be worth more than $2,000,000.

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Does that result surprise you? I’ll be the first to admit that it’s unusual in today’s short-sighted, manage-for-quarterly-results business environment. But if you can put aside the pleasant novelty of the management decision, it is a great example of risk’s value. (It’s also a great example of risk awareness playing a big role in a major business decision.)

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My story deals with the value assigned to risk by a corporate customer, but the same principle applies to individual customers like you and me. Think about people that buy Volvos. What about people that buy Macs? Both groups are at least somewhat concerned about risk (personal risk and malware risk) and are willing to pay a premium to minimize that risk. There are lots of examples of products marketed as ‘lower risk’. There are lots of people who gladly pay more to buy those products.

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So let’s accept that there is significant value associated with the risks perceived by your external customer (i.e. external stakeholder). Doesn’t it stand to reason that there is significant value associated with risks perceived by your internal stakeholders – the risks faced by your business? Don’t you think it’s about time you start managing that value?

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OK, I know what you’re thinking… “Great, Tom. My risks have value. But how do I figure out what that value is?” Funny you should ask. You can check out these posts for evaluation methods that you can use to quantify the value of your risks:

• Evaluate Your Risks, Part I – Why?
• Evaluate Your Risks, Part II – The First 2 Steps
• Risk’s Impact on What?
• Evaluate Your Risks, Part III – The Last 2 Steps
• The Miracle of the 80-20 Rule

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I would love to hear some of your stories about value being assigned to risk. Leave me some comments and let’s talk about them.

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I’ve put together a compilation of how-to posts to help guide you through the risk management process (“How To Manage Risk”) . Check it out!

Here’s a Quiz For You

What do these decisions have in common?

• Is it wise for me to invest in new equipment for my business?
• Should I respond to the irate customer’s email or just let it go?
• Is the best route turning left, turning right or going straight?
• Should I have beef or chicken for dinner tonight?
• Should I wear the blue shirt or the green shirt today?

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Give up?

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The answer is that each decision’s solution will be based on the costs and benefits as perceived by the decisionmaker. The decision will be driven by a cost benefit analysis.

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(OK. I’ll come clean. It’s a trick question. Why? Because the solution to every decision is based on a cost benefit analysis.)

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What is Cost Benefit Analysis?

Simply put, cost benefit analysis is evaluating the costs required to carry out a particular decision with respect to the benefits derived from that decision. It’s not a difficult concept. (But as with all simple concepts we can apply great complexity, so if you’re interested in the complex description, check out the Wikipedia page here.)

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Cost benefit analysis consists of three simple steps:

1. Calculate the expected costs over some time frame
2. Calculate the expected benefits over the same time frame
3. Compare them to each other

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Obviously the great majority of decisions are made using a unconscious cost benefit analysis, but there are times when consciously evaluating the costs and benefits may be helpful. One of those times is when you are planning how to mitigate your risks and exploit your opportunities.

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Cost Benefit Analysis and Risk Management Connected How?

Cost benefit analysis (CBA) is a great tool for evaluating mitigation alternatives during step three of the risk management process – plan for your risks. We’ve all heard the saying “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” It was uttered by a very wise, albeit somewhat troubled (or very hungry) individual. There are always alternatives. There are always decisions to be made. Cost benefit analysis provides the method for making the best decision.

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Tips for Effective CBA

Analyzing costs and benefits is not difficult. In fact we all do it many times each day. There is a key to doing “effective” CBA, however – considering the “hidden” costs and benefits. Let’s look at a simple example…

Fred (of Fred’s Coffee Shop, introduced here) has identified fire risk as a key risk for his business. Working with his insurance broker, Fred has identified several different alternatives that will reduce his risk. A key part of every solution is insurance, but he could also purchase extra fire extinguishers, install a monitored fire detection system or install a sprinkler system. Fred recognizes that each alternative has a very obvious cost - installation cost. But Fred also realizes that there are hidden costs and benefits involved.

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Fred learned from his insurance broker that each of his alternatives will have some ongoing expenses. The fire extinguishers will require employee training and need to be inspected every year. The monitoring system will have a monthly service charge. Even the sprinkler system will require regular inspections and testing. Fred makes a point to capture the hidden costs.

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Fred’s insurance broker also told him that the insurance company will give Fred a discount on the insurance premium if he installs a fire detection system and an even bigger discount if he installs sprinklers. Fred adds these discounts to the “benefits” list so he can have a true picture of his net cost for each alternative. 

In the example Fred could have done the cost benefit analysis and made a decision without the hidden costs and benefits information, but the decision may not have been the best solution. Some of the hidden costs and benefits could be substantial.

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It’s also important to remember to include qualitative costs and benefits in your analysis. Your alternative might have benefits like increasing employee morale or just plain making you more comfortable. Don’t forget to include that information in the analysis – it’s important.

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Do you see how including hidden and qualitative costs and benefits could make an apparently obvious decision not so obvious?

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We all do cost benefit analysis every day of our lives. It is an extremely effective way to make a good decision IF all of the costs and benefits are included in the analysis. Keep the formal CBA in your risk management toolbox. Once you start using it and getting comfortable with it, you’ll find that you come back to the technique over and over again.

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How are you doing? Starting to get the idea about how to manage risk in your small business? Give me an example of when you’ve consciously done a cost benefit analysis. It doesn’t have to be business related. Feedback, please!

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p.s. Check out the complete listing of “How To Manage Business Risk” for small business risk management tips, tricks and details.

Let’s drill down a bit into risk evaluation – step 2 in the risk management process. It’s standard practice to evaluate a risk or opportunity’s impact and rank it. You can rank the impact on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest impact. Or you can rank the impact “high”, “medium”, or “low”. Or if you’re utilizing financial models you can calculate the risk’s impact and represent it in terms of your local currency.

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Seems very straight forward, right? It is, but let’s take a step back and ask “Impact on what?” Risks and opportunities can impact your business in multiple ways, right? They can impact:

• Revenue (sales or money coming in)
• Expenses (costs or money going out)
• Profits (the net difference of money coming in and money going out)
• Cash flow (cash on hand or the rate of cash accumulation)
• Quality (tangible product quality and customer-perceived service quality)
• Schedule (progress towards a milestone date)

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Sidebar: I know that there are other types of risk impacts that could be added to the list – IT/data security, regulatory, reputation, etc. – but in my opinion all of them should boil down to one or more of the six impacts above.

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In order to properly rank and prioritize the risks and opportunities, they should all be evaluated with respect to a single impact so they can be directly compared to each other. Does that make sense? Let me give you a quick example:

Fred has evaluated his risk inventory and identified the risk with the biggest impact on quality, the risk with the biggest impact on cash flow and the risk with the biggest impact on schedule. Fred looks at all three and scratches his head. “Which one do I work on first? They are all important.”

Fred’s dilemma was caused by evaluating his risks in terms of multiple impacts. If he had evaluated all of them with respect to only cash flow (or only quality or only schedule), the risks would all be ranked together and he could clearly see which one should be worked on first. Understand?

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An interesting point: the ranked order of Fred’s risks if he evaluated them in terms of cash flow would probably be different than if he had evaluated them in terms of quality. Do you see why? It’s important to give some thought to the basis of your evaluation before you start.

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So which impact is the right impact to use for risk evaluation?

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The real answer is “It depends”, but personally I think 99% of the time the answer should be cash flow. Let me tell you why. First off, in a business setting – and especially in a small business setting – cash is king. Cash flow is the best litmus test for a successful business, even the mega-corporations. That’s because cash flow is a measure of the combined effects of the other five impacts. Businesses with exceptional revenue can easily fail (have you heard of ‘growing yourself out of business’?). Businesses with outstanding cost control and low expenses can fail if they don’t have the necessary revenues. Even businesses with solid profits can fail if the profits are primarily driven by depreciation, amortization, balance sheet transactions or other non-cash accounting treatments. But a business with great cash flow can only succeed. They have more cash coming in than is going out, and that’s the name of the game, folks.

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I do have to tell you, there is a downside to evaluating in terms of cash flow. It pretty much requires some sort of financial model. Don’t let that scare you, though. Models don’t have to be complicated. I will be writing about how to set up financial models in a spreadsheet in future posts. You can do it.

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So my advice to you is evaluate your risks in terms of cash flow. I know, I know. It will involve a bit more work and judgment on your part, but it is the most direct way to tie your risk management effort to your business success. Remember you’re not doing risk management just to go through the motions. Spend some time and do it right. You won’t regret it. I promise.

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How are you doing so far? Still with me? I could use some feedback.

My girlfriend Amy has a home-based, small business, working as a professional wedding and portrait photographer (one of the best in my very-biased opinion, but check out her site and judge for yourself.) I work with Amy as a PT photographer on weekends and also help her out on the business side of things. As I’ve learned the in’s and out’s of a home-based, single person business, I’ve been paying attention to its similarities and differences in terms of risk management.

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Amy’s small business has many of the risks faced by traditional brick and mortar businesses. She has equipment related risks. She has market related risks. There are the normal insurable risks. But Amy also faces some interesting risks that are unique to a home-based business. If school is canceled due to a snow storm, the kids are now around the “office” all day presenting a formidable distraction. There are always risks of getting diverted from the work activities to home chores. As the sole employee, Amy’s business grinds to a halt if she gets sick. There are also risks associated with the isolation that comes from being a sole proprietor.

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Amy’s business also has many of the same opportunities that are available to “traditional” businesses. Marketing, production efficiencies, technology, strategic partnerships, etc. all present areas that could be exploited for improved revenue or profitability. But a home-based business offers unique opportunities as well. There are lifestyle opportunities like being able to be there when the kids get home from school and having the ability to make instant adjustments to work/life balance (you know, like adjusting from 100/0 to 98/2). There are tax opportunities for home improvement related business expenses. Amy also has an opportunity to tap into a contingent workforce of small people that are willing to work in exchange for a only little extra computer time.

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Home-based businesses don’t have a free pass that exempts them from the need for risk management. In fact, I would argue that they have a more urgent need because each risk that becomes reality has a much larger relative impact on a sole proprietorship than it does on a larger business. (100% of a sole proprietor’s employees will be involved in dealing with a crisis, while only a portion of a larger business’ employees will probably be affected by a similar crisis.)

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I can already hear the chorus of sole proprietors: “We don’t have time to manage risks!”. I know you think you don’t. But I would suggest that every decision you make is driven by some type of risk or opportunity. I would also suggest that you are already managing risks, but call it something different – like running a business. The only difference I’m suggesting is take the time to jot down the potential risks as you think of them. Spend a little time thinking about which risks and opportunities would have the biggest impact on your life and then sketch out what you would do to exploit the opportunities and minimize the risks.

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Risk management does not need to be burdensome. The process can be scaled down – it just shouldn’t be scaled down to zero. Check out my other blog posts for step-by-step instructions. Here is a good place to start. Although most of my writing is written in terms of “traditional” businesses, you can apply the same principles to your home-based business.

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What type of assistance would be most helpful in getting you started, small business owner? Leave me a comment and let’s make it happen.

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p.s. Amy doesn’t know it yet, but a risk management plan is in her future

It’s been difficult to come up with topics this week.  The situation in Haiti seems to consume the majority of my thoughts when I’m outside the office. Make a difference. Please donate cash to the relief agency of your choice.

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I thought I’d take a look at my Google Analytics page and see what people are searching for when they find my website. There is a definite trend. Many of the searches involve the word “example” or are geared toward identifying potential risks for businesses. Let’s talk about that…

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Businesses face many types of risks. Some of those risks can be managed with insurance. I’m not going to address those here, but I’ll point you to a great site with tons of free information. Check out www.ClearRisk.com for a comprehensive list of business risks that can be managed by insurance. I would also strongly recommend that you download and read their free e-book. It’s an easy read and provides a great education on insurance for small and medium businesses. (Disclaimer: My recommendation is not sponsored and I’m not being paid in any way. In fact, Craig Rowe and the ClearRisk team don’t even know I’m doing it.)

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So let’s talk about the risks you can’t buy insurance for. Obviously every business is going to have risks that are unique to that business, but they will always fall into three broad categories – budget risk, quality risk and schedule risk. (Check out my post here for details.) Starting with those categories, you can drill down by using the “5 Coulds Technique” (detailed here).

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As you do the brainstorming, you’ll find that you come up with a wide range of risks. Here are just a few that come to mind as I’m writing. I’m in a manufacturing and retail mindset this morning so the risks are geared to those kinds of businesses, but many of them apply to service businesses, too. Some risks are repeated in multiple categories purposely.

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Make sure you read the IMPORTANT NOTE at the bottom of the post!

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Employee Related Risks

• Theft
• Departure of a key employee
• Lack of training
• High turnover
• Sabotage/intentional misbehavior
• Employee disputes
• Poor customer service

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Revenue Related Risks

• Competitor enters market
• Market size shrinks (local population shrinks, demographics change)
• Economic pressure (reduces money available to be spent on your product)
• Substitute product becomes available
• Customer access disrupted (e.g. road construction in front of your business)
• Pricing doesn’t match value perceived by customers

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Expense Related Risks

• Material costs increase
• High rework expense
• High warranty expense
• Loss of key supplier
• Increased wage expense (tight labor market)
• Increased benefit costs
• Loss of lease/increased rent
• Increased utility rates
• Increased bank charges (interest rates, credit card fees)

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Quality Related Risks

• Poor production process
• High rework expense
• High warranty expense
• Poor customer service
• Low quality materials
• Poor employee morale
• Inadequate equipment/tools
• Poor/unattractive packaging
• Equipment/tool breakdown

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Schedule Related Risks

• Customers are slow paying
• Unfavorable terms from suppliers (e.g. cash in advance)
• Late delivery of materials
• Lost/misdirected shipments of your product
• Slow response of bank, government agency (e.g. loan proceeds, permits, etc.)
• Delayed construction/remodel
• Slow response to marketing campaign
• Equipment/tool breakdown (e.g. internet down, computer virus)

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Are you getting the idea? This list just scratches the surface. Your business will have many more risks that are unique to your situation.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: I’ve focused the examples above on risks, but don’t forget about your opportunities. Many of the risks listed above will have corresponding opportunities you can exploit. For example: The risk “Customers are slow paying” has an opportunity “Customers pay quicker than expected”. Don’t get caught in the trap of focusing only on the negative. Identifying and exploiting opportunities can pay for your risk management program. Check out this post for more info.

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Please share some examples of risks facing your business. Leave a comment.

It’s been a while… Let’s get back to basics of the risk management process.

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We’ve covered the first two steps – identifying risks and evaluating them. You now have a great list of your risks and opportunities, in order of their potential impact on your business, but your work isn’t done yet. Having the list helps you anticipate which risk may have the biggest impact on your business, but if the risk becomes reality you will still be reacting to it during a potentially stressful situation.

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Since clear, thoughtful thinking is difficult during a crisis, let’s do some thinking now about what we would do. This exercise is called risk mitigation planning. Believe it or not, this is the fun part of risk management.

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Risks can be mitigated (i.e. made less severe or alleviated) in several different ways. You can mitigate risk by:

1. Avoiding it in the first place (the obvious preference)
2. Reducing the risk’s impact when it occurs
3. Transferring the risk and its impact to somebody else (e.g. through the use of insurance, warranties, etc.).

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For each risk, write down what steps you will take to mitigate that particular risk. How will you recognize the risk becoming reality (is there a measurement you can use)? At what point will you take mitigating action? What actions will you take? How will you know when you have succeeded? The mitigation plan is where you will realize the greatest value of your risk management efforts. You are now prepared for the most important risks to your business and have a plan for dealing with them if and when they occur.

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I think there is a tendency to over think risk mitigation sometimes or at least make the planned mitigation more complex than it needs to be. Don’t fall in to the trap of making your plan overly complicated. Many times employee awareness or training will be just as effective as some fancy software – and a whole lot cheaper!

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Let’s talk about how mitigation planning works for opportunities. During the sensitivity analysis, you created a rank order list of opportunities. Now is the time to plan on how you can realize some of those opportunities and reap their benefits. Write down the steps you will take to make the opportunities realities. What actions will you take? How will you know when you’ve succeeded?

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Opportunities are exciting! Planning for opportunities is fun! Now you can have some fun and transform the opportunities into results. Effectively executing your plans for your opportunities many times will offset the cost of the risk managment process or even pay for it completely. Don’t pass up the opportunity (pun intended )!

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Robert F. Kennedy once wrote: “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” Dare to manage your risks. I’ve got your back - so don’t worry about failing greatly - let’s achieve greatly. OK? Thoughts?

In our last conversation about risk management how-to’s, we finished up the discussion on evaluating risks. If you are able to utilize some sort of financial model to estimate risk impacts during your evaluation, you now have a rather lengthy list of risks with their probable impacts. That list can now be sorted.

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How you sort the data depends on your desired approach. You can sort the data in order of probable impact. (This sort order will put the risks with the greatest potential impact to your business at the top of the list.) Or you can sort the data in order of probability of occurrence. (This sort order will put the risks that are most likely to occur at the top of the list.) Each sort order has its benefits. Personally, I look at the data in both ways. I obviously want to deal with the biggest impact risks. But I also want to deal with the most probable risks. Call it selfish, but I like the idea of reducing my future stress levels by eliminating the most probable risks.

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So we’ve got a sorted list of risks. It’s probably somewhat overwhelming. There is no way you can deal with all of them. Where do you start? Which risks do you work on and which do you leave alone? That’s where the 80-20 rule comes in…

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The 80-20 Rule (aka Pareto Principle) is nothing short of amazing. It says that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. The 80-20 rule applies in many places, but let’s talk about how it can help you out with your risk management.

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Look at your risk inventory, sorted in order of impact. Count the total number of risks. Now take 20% of the total number. Add up the probable impact of those top 20% of risks and you’ll see that it accounts for about 80% of the total probable impact. Think about that for a minute…. You can address 80% of your total risk exposure by working on 20% of the risks facing your company. How cool is that? If you have 50 risks identified, you can address 10 of them and cover the lion’s share of your risk exposure. Now it’s not so overwhelming, eh?

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So now we have a manageable number of risks to think about and plan for. That leads us into the final step of risk management – planning for your risks. That will be my topic for the next how-to posts.

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Coming up

So far, I’ve done a lot of writing about how to do practical business risk management. That’s all fine and good, but I know it’s difficult to apply how-to text to real life. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to introduce you to Fred. Fred owns his own coffee shop and actively manages his risks. I’ll share some of Fred’s experiences with you and show you his risk management spreadsheet. I think the example will be helpful in seeing how all this information I’m spewing at you can be applied in your business.

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Also in the works… I think it would a glossary of terms might be helpful. I use a lot of terms that can be confusing. Plus some of my terms are “tom terms” – a little different than the industry standard, but easier to understand (in my humble opinion). The glossary will be a living page on the blog. Stay tuned…

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What else would you like to see from me? Is there different content or more of a certain category that you want to see? What can I do to help? I’m happy to accommodate. Let me know your opinion.

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Disclosure: I now have a disclosure page. Click here or click the “Disclosure” tab at the top left of the page to read my full disclosure that I really have nothing to disclose.

If you will allow me to indulge, I’d like to depart a bit from my focus on business risk management. Risk management isn’t limited to business. What types of risk do you face in your personal life? In November I wrote a post titled “3 Categories of Risk“. I should have been a little more specific. In that post I was talking about categories of business risk. But what about personal risk? Here are some general categories that come to mind, in no particular order…

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Relationship Risk

Life is full of relationships – family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, service providers, etc. Every one of us manages these relationships on a daily basis. Humans are social creatures whose existence depends on relationships. I can’t think of any risk more important than relationship risk. I doubt that many of us consciously consider our relationships and take specific steps to manage our risks. Should we?

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Liability Risk

We all face potential liabilities. Some are covered by typical insurance – homeowner’s/renter’s insurance and auto insurance will cover someone’s medical costs if they are injured on or by our property. But there are other types of potential liabilities. In today’s hyper-connected world, libel and slander are easier to commit than ever. Identity theft can create huge personal liabilities. What are you doing to manage the other less-known potential liabilities? Granted, there is a big overlap here with financial risk, but I think it deserves its own category. Does personal reputation risk fall in this category?

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Safety Risk

I don’t have to tell parents about safety risk. From the time our kids start to crawl, we are chasing them around to protect them from all the hazards in the world. We manage our own personal safety risks with seat belts, airbags, helmets and pads. Security companies produce TV ads reminding us that bad people might break into our houses and threaten us and our families. Smoke alarms, airline safety briefings and evacuation plans have become taken for granted. Does that mean we’re ready when they’re needed?

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Property Risk

We all own property and face risks because of it. There are risks that someone might steal it. Or there are risks that it might be damaged or destroyed. Again, typical insurance will cover some of the risk for your biggest properties, but have you considered some of the smaller properties? Think about your family photos. Do you have any heirlooms or items with sentimental value. How are your managing the risk of their loss, damage or destruction?

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Financial/Investment Risk

I probably don’t have to write much about this one. Most of us experienced a financial loss of some sort during the last year’s recession. Times were good there for a while and a lot of people got lax in managing their financial risks. The recession was a big bucket of cold water reminding us that we’ll pay the price if we’re not paying attention. Do you really need me to say anything more?

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Health Risk

Health risk is related to safety risk, but it’s different. People are becoming more aware of taking care of themselves and better managing their health risks. If you’re in the U.S. you can’t help hearing about the health care debates in the U.S. congress. Health risk management is big business and a very sensitive topic for many people. Do you think about managing your health risks on a daily basis?

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Employment Risk

During the last year, the U.S. unemployment rate doubled. Very few of us can consider our jobs completely safe. Do you think about what you would do if you were laid off or if your business wasn’t profitable anymore? Do you have specific plans? Is this risk the same as financial risk? I would suggest not. Most people get much more from a job than just a paycheck.

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Environmental Risk

I’ll be honest. This one was almost an afterthought for me, but it needs to be included. Whatever your thoughts are about global warming, going “green”, and tree huggers, it’s hard to argue that there is not environmental risk facing us. It may be on a micro-scale – mold in your house or a contaminated well. Or it may be on a macro-scale – melting glaciers and a depleted ozone layer. Wherever you want to look, we face environmental risk. How are you addressing environmental risk, either micro or macro?

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As I paused in writing this, it occurred to me that there are personal opportunities as well. How do we manage those? I’ll save that one for a future post. It seems to me that managing personal risks and opportunities is similar but very different from managing business risks. It’s an interesting topic that I want to come back to. What do you think? Can personal risks be managed in the same way as business risks? Are there other personal risk categories that I missed? I look forward to your thoughts…