Success cannot be reached without failure

Success cannot be reached without failure. It’s standard practice to think about and apply lessons learned after an unplanned event which has impacted your business. But have you thought about visualising possible failures in advance so you can improve the end result? A premortem vs a postmortem.

Years ago, I came across the pre-mortem concept in Gary Klein’s Harvard Business Review “Performing-a-project-premortem”.

As a leader of a small-medium sized business with finite resources, Gary’s article made me realise that I want to minimise or even avoid thinking “I wish I had…..” after an actual business impact.

It’s way too easy for my optimism bias to kick in and feel confident about risks in my business. So, once a month I prioritise time to review my company’s risk registers, pick four items across the whole risk domain (cyber, health and safety, finance, strategy etc.) and I do a mini pre-mortem. I literally ask myself if this risk occurred is there anything more, I wish I had done. A little stress-test if you like. Sometimes the answer is yes, often no. Then we get after doing better.

Do you know all your risks? Are you aware of your blind spots? Asset or health and safety risks are often easily understood. What about some of the more underestimated risks like:
– Unethical behavior by an employee.
– Customer cancelling a major order at short notice.
– Someone stealing your IP and using it in the same market.
– An uninsured risk resulting in cashflow impact.
– A competitor starting a rumour about your business?

Do some of these fall into your “I wish I had….” category?

If so you can try this free resource:
https://lnkd.in/gtz4Xm-8

Or drop me a line and we can do a more detailed risk readiness review and develop a roadmap so that you never wished you’d……. after an unplanned event