THE BALANCE BETWEEN RISK TAKING AND EXPLOITING BUSINESS - Free Essay Example

This dissertation tackles the difficulties companys face, when managing risk and exploiting opportunities and where the limit is drawn between the two. Its based on a journal the high performance business, by Bill Spinard, Craig Faris, Steve Culp and Paul F. Nunes. The intention of this report is to provide a foundation for indication on current practice in this area and to make some suggestions for next steps. In looking at organizations that excel, we identify ingredients that appear to be common to those that achieve success through innovation and well-judged risk taking. By understanding why some businesses fail and some succeed could be explained by the risks some avoided and the opportunities some never took. An entrepreneurial skill that should be possessed by business men and woman are that they should not be frightened to take risks, as risks could bring change and could be advantageous in some instances. But risks are expensive and could mean failure, and failure does not always mean bad as the staying down is not successful and learning from mistakes is essential for any business. Any company that does not take challenges does not know the difference between succeeding and failing even though they might make a profit, usually such co mpanies arent flexible to change as it only knows one thing or has one strategy etc. According to Frederick Funston, Stephen Wagner and Henry Ristuccia, like people, companies die. A 1997 study indicated that an average life span of successful companies is 50 years maximum and even less for smaller companies, and its safe to say that the economic crisis 2007-2009 has proven that this mortality rate of enterprise is not just an aftermath. As the enemy of risk is; order, the degree of recent loss and public outrage has caused many to cast the failure to properly understand and manage risk as the root and, therefore, the most forceful and top-of-mind business concern of our time, as corporate risk taking and management involves unquestionably human factors, such as management and communication skills and judgment, as this matter might have become very personal for, directors, senior executives, investors, managers, and the general public as the demands for greater liability and precisi on reach extraordinary levels. ABSTRACT As enterprise leaders want to manage difficulty, prepare their companies for the unforeseen future that is changing and reduce uncertainty, especially for the next killer risk or the next opportunity. Whilst the recent past has made a case for revisiting how risks are conventionally understood and managed, for many the way forward remains unclear, by beginning with the responsible one and the one with authority. Business leaders are understandably concerned with: according to D.G. Jones and M.R. Endsley Shaping the right balance between board oversight and executive management. Defining the appropriate level of risk taking for their enterprise. Improving transparency and oversight for the board and other key stakeholders. Gaining first-mover advantage through the identification of black swans, both uncommon opportunities and unexpected interference. Taking a longer-term perspective for success that can still accommodate the need for survival in the short term. Fin ding the unexpected before it finds them and thus becoming more proactive. The art of governance and leadership is primarily about decision making and judgment: Who gets to make the main decisions that affect the life and death, success or failure of the enterprise. One key lesson of these disorderly times is that critical risks need to be addressed by the leadership and the board. A more systematic way to make decisions about risks and reward should be consulted by senior executives. Boards need to better understand what the key enterprise risks are, what types of relevant information need to come to their attention, and what comprises their role with regard to management. Ultimately, risk related decisions are made at every level in the enterprise daily and everyone in the enterprise has a role to play. Although CEOs and chief risk officers make different decisions than the rank and file, it is possible and necessary that they all share in an understanding of key processes, too ls and decision-making skills. This is the starting point for a discussion about risk intelligent enterprise management, since value and risk cannot be meaningfully separated. Risks to existing assets must be protected against and other certain risks must be taken to create new value. Risk which is defined by G. Johnson, K. Scholes, and R. Whittington (exploring corporate strategy) as: concerns the probability and consequences of the failure of a strategy. Risk is an aspect of acceptability (concerned with the expected performance outcomes of a strategy and the extent to which these meet the expectations of stakeholders), which an organization faces in pursuing a strategy. A risk can either be high with major long-term programmes if innovation, where there are high levels of public concern about new developments, by developing a better acceptance of an organizations strategic position is at the core of good risk assessment. Risk is usually associated by Financial ratios Sen sitivity analysis Stakeholder reactions. By Dennis Brown A new approach to risk is risk intelligence, conventional risk management has focused on avoiding the risks to a business strategy, rather than understanding and managing the risks of the strategy itself. While the protection of existing assets is necessary, it is not sufficient for competitive advantage. Unfortunately, when risk is defined by an organization only as the failure to adequately protect existing assets and prevent loss (unrewarded risks), the rewards of reasoned, calculated risk taking (rewarded risks) are often neglected at potentially high cost to the companys future success. Avoiding the risks of non-compliance with regulations, operational failures and lack of integrity in financial reports are essential activities but are not sufficient for competitive advantage, and a diet of pure risk aversion likely will lead to extinction. Enterprise survival is more than just staying out of trouble; it is also abo ut creating new and future value to ensure the highest return on investment. New business models; shifts in the competitive landscape, consumer preferences and behaviors; and new technologies all demand enterprise quickness and resilience. Risk includes the potential for failure that could result in loss, harm or missed opportunity the risk of functioning. Risk intelligence is both the capability to effectively act upon intelligence in order to achieve the desired results and produce. Some level of failure is essential for experimentation and innovation. The enterprise needs to determine acceptable versus unacceptable differences between actual and expected performance. Otherwise, intolerance of any level of failure will lead to risk. In this broad context, success often requires the embedding of risk intelligent capabilities throughout all levels of the organization. Opportunities: G. Johnson, K. Scholes, and R. Whittington a favorable or advantageous circumstance or combina tion of circumstances, a favorable or suitable occasion or time. A chance for progress or advancement, an opportunity is an auspicious state of affairs or a suitable time. High performance requires a keen understanding of not only a companys appetite for risk but also its capacity to manage that risk effectively. Companies that walk that fine line between the two can better protect themselves and pursue new marketplace opportunities. FINDING THE BALANCE Companies have chosen to slow down and play defense as the economic meltdown has caused distress. Though understandable, that approach wont light any fires under corporate performance, or fuel a recovery. On the other hand, some companies appear ready to go on offense with spending sprees. Hundreds of companies are sitting on millions of cash or by cutting jobs and cutting down on capital spending. But can they spend that money cautiously, bearing in mind the painful risk management lessons of the recent past? Both situations emphasize an immature capability in the global business community: a keen understanding of not only a companys appetite for risk but also its capacity to administer that risk effectively. Companies that achieve a balance between the two can better protect themselves and practice new marketplace opportunities. G. Johnson, K. Scholes, and R. Whittington appliance of this protracted concept of risk-bearing capacity is something new to the field of risk and perfor mance management for non-financial companies. It is a measure of a companys resiliency and alertness-an estimate of its ability to take on new opportunities, as well as the scope and type of economic shocks it can bear without a serious decline in its operational effectiveness. By using a risk-bearing capacity analysis companies can balance their appetite for risk taking against their ability to manage those risks. Neither too cautious nor too reckless, they can adjust either their capacity or their appetite to make wise and ultimately successful investment decisions. The failure to effectively manage risk by companies, governments and households is at the heart of the current economic crisis. But doubling down on bad bets and taking bigger chances in a desperate bid for much-needed growth is not the solution for business. Nor is the answer to become as cautious as to leave opportunity on the table. This new approach to risk can help companies find the path that is right for them, h elping them bring risk appetite and risk capacity into balance. The capacity to effectively understand and bear risk to support profitable growth involves much more than just sound financial management and the building of capital reserves as important as those are. It is also more than defensive posturing sounding the alarm and then circling the wagons. Risk-bearing capacity is multidimensional, comprising at least five components: financial strength, management capacity, competitive dynamics, and operational flexibility and risk management systems. Effective risk-bearing capacity analysis can help companies establish stronger links between strategy and operational planning, which enables them to optimize capital allocation, identify additional resources available to seize opportunities, craft much more relevant and powerful performance metrics, and achieve better focus on performance reporting. Risk-bearing capacity also expands the traditional idea of risk management beyond financ ial resources, focusing a company on a broader picture of management processes, operations, systems, leadership and culture that can increase resiliency in the face of setbacks, and improve quickness to pursue new opportunities. That is, it helps a company deal with both the downside and the upside of risk-to play defense as well as offense. High performance requires a strong appetite for risk, but one that is balanced with an equal capacity for bearing risk. Taking on too much risk eventually leads to trouble, but taking on too little when the company is highly successful can cause underperformance. Companies seeking their very best performance, therefore, need strategies to bring their risk appetite and risk-bearing capacity into balance. At times bad things happen to good companies, but some of those things are more predictable than others, effective management of risk bearing capacity enables companies to deal more effectively with two types of adverse events. First are in cidents that occur semi-regularly and have a modest impact on the company, such as foreign exchange fluctuations, input price volatility, labor issues. These events rarely come as a surprise, and most management teams have experience in responding to them. The financial impact of such incidents is generally minimized by adjusting the selling price or the level of reserves such as cash. Secondly are the low-probability but high-impact events, the failure of a major supplier, including the loss of a major manufacturing facility, natural disasters. These events are the ones that nightmares are made of crises that can stop a company in its tracks, or drive it out of business completely (G.A. Cole). Few companies can afford to set aside sufficient capital to protect against these infrequent occurrences; instead, these events are usually mitigated through disaster recovery, insurance and business continuity plans. A high-performance business, however, will excel in managing this kind of a dversity. It will have in place the means to work around the event faster than its competitors, along with the resilience to bounce back sooner. Analysis of a companys risk-bearing capacity does not produce a single number or one easy answer. Rather, such analysis looks at the interaction of several dimensions that, acting together, can make a company more resilient and better able to take on appropriate risks. DIMENSIONS TO MAKING COMPANY MORE APPROPRIATE FOR RISK TAKING: Financial strength This element is the easiest to measure as it can be considered a refinement of established financial measures and ratios such as cash flow at risk and debt equity. Traditional solvency parameters include credit rating, trading multiple, strength, cash generating capabilities, leverage, and diversification. Management capacity Managerial capacity is an evaluation of the effectiveness of management processes, and how well they are employed to add value to the shareholder-a kind of blend of investment analysis, corporate governance analysis credit rating. Management capacity covers the depth and breadth of the management ranks, it also covers the leadership experience with executing the strategic plan and in resolving and bouncing back from crises. Competitive dynamics Competitive dynamics refers generally to a companys position in the marketplace comparative to competitors and market trends past, present and future. Operational flexibility Operational flexibility is the evaluation of a companys ability to react to market developments and trends while still maintaining strategic focus and financial continuity. It includes components such as production line switch ability or alternative supply chain sourcing capabilities. Risk management systems Risk management systems include the technology, people, processes people, and systems that a company employs to identify mitigate measure and monitor its risk exposures and that protect its solvency and stability during extreme events. The protective dimension includes business continuity, planning, disaster recovery, and crisis management planning. The evaluation of risk management systems relative to leading practices provides a view of how effectively a company understands and manages both downside and upside opportunity risk. With the lack of effective risk management systems, the ability to leverage risk-bearing capacity is significantly diminished. A risk-bearing capacity analysis looks at these five dimensions individually and in interaction with one another to provide both qualitative and quantitative indicators of overall capacity, as well as currently employed and identified reserve capacity. Companies miss opportunities and leave money on the table. In this case, several underlying causes may be at work. Strong financial performance (driven by either internal or external events) may be providing a high level of capacity, but it is short-circuited by cultural conservatism or poor integration with strategic planning. Management may be a root cause here. THE ESSENTIALS OF RISK MANAGEMENT The board or senior leadership may have a high risk aversion due to earlier corporate travails; or they may not adequately understand the financial tools, such as leverage, that are available to exploit resources and seize opportunities. Alternatively, a strong focus on operational flexibility may be driving an overall increase in risk bearing capacity but may not be matched by similar growth in risk taking within the companys strategic evaluation and planning processes. Where the appetite for risk is greater than the risk-bearing capacity, companies are either strategically overextended or unable to achieve their strategic objectives. In this situation, companies are involved in strategic plays or operational approaches that are unsustainable, which degrades their financial performance. By appearing vulnerable, they set themselves up as potential targets for competitors. The strategic challenge is how to bring the two measures into balance, especially in an environment of both gre ater market uncertainty and commensurately greater market opportunities. Fortunately, there are solutions, depending on what is causing the imbalance for instance, if risk-bearing capacity is low and appetite is high, companies can grow their capacity or shrink their appetite. Or if risk-bearing capacity is high and appetite is low, companies can similarly reverse the course of each. These strategies are not entirely exclusive, as many companies should seek to simultaneously grow both capacity and appetite to reach their full potential. In this situation, companies are involved in strategic plays or operational approaches that are unsustainable, which degrades their financial performance. By appearing vulnerable, they set themselves up as potential targets for competitors. The strategic challenge is how to bring the two measures into balance, especially in an environment of both greater market uncertainty and commensurately greater market opportunities. Fortunately, there are soluti ons, depending on what is causing the imbalance. For instance, if risk-bearing capacity is low and appetite is high, companies can grow their capacity or shrink their appetite. Or if risk-bearing capacity is high and appetite is low, companies can similarly reverse the course of each. These strategies are not entirely exclusive, as many companies should seek to simultaneously grow both capacity and appetite to reach their full potential. Mitigating risks in the early stages of development saves resources. Additionally, by reducing exposure in some places, the ability to better manage risk can provide capacity that can be employed elsewhere. Taking it a step further, an increased understanding of how risk actually affects the investment portfolio can improve investment performance and extend capacity for new opportunities. An appetite for risk that exceeds the capacity to manage it can be spotted in several ways. Some more obvious signs include a rapid increase in scale, perhaps f rom merger activity; a substantial increase in leverage; or a significant commitment to new markets or new offerings-or both. Companies with too little capacity also often find themselves realigning performance expectations-that is, they under-perform relative to their original investment plan for strategic opportunities, and then regularly adjust the plan downward. Simply listening to the market and your employees can also provide valuable insights. Negative analyst reports or a decline in share price or credit rating without a corresponding decline in current financial performance may indicate the market thinks you are moving too far, too fast. Similarly, unexpected management departures or increases in voluntary turnover may suggest a loss in employee confidence in your strategy. The signs of being too conservative-having a risk-bearing capacity that can accommodate a bigger appetite-can be more elusive. Playing it safe is so often considered a virtue that failing to take advanta ge of a reasonably large appetite for risk might be seen instead as wise discretion. At some point, however, justifiable caution turns into unjustifiable tentativeness. Look for historically high levels of cash not connected with particular market conditions, or a sustained reluctance to spend cash reserves. Another warning sign is a high hurdle rate for new initiatives. In this situation, management demands to see a high expected return on internal resource allocation before it will approve a new project. This approach often reduces the number of potential opportunities considered, and therefore can also reduce risk exposure to a degree. According to D.G. Jones and M.R. Endsley But a .hurdle rate that is significantly above the cost of capital can indicate a strong aversion to risk and an unwillingness to step out into new areas. Unnecessarily high dividends may also be a sign of an appetite too modest for a companys risk-bearing capacity. The market may signal a risk appetite p roblem with a decline in share price not related to current earnings and not shared by competitors due to market conditions. Investors may not be confident that the company will pursue market opportunities with vigor. On the people side, if competitors are snatching up top talent, it could be a sign that youve lost your spark and arent offering your employees enough good opportunities. In a world of limited financial resources and uncertain market conditions, it is critical that companies neither overextend nor underutilize their risk-bearing capacity. A company that operates beyond the boundaries of risk capacity can destroy company value and even endanger operations. But playing it too safe means missing opportunities for growth and profitability. All too often, a company only addresses the question What is our risk appetite? implicitly. There is no explicit discussion of the balance between risks and opportunities, between risk appetite and strategic goals. As a result, the appro ach remains haphazard and intuitive instead of structured and reasoned. Companies will benefit from a much more explicit discussion, definition and implementation of risk appetite. It will allow them to link risk management to performance management. A clear definition of risk appetite, risk tolerance, risk targets and risk limits at all relevant levels in the business is an excellent basis for effective ERM, for embedding risk management into day-to-day decision making, for balancing opportunities and risks. By articulating its risk appetite, a company can focus in one comprehensive process on what might create value, sustain value and diminish value. Do we know the key risks to which our company is exposed? Are these key risks a logical consequence of our strategy? Are we taking the right risks to give us a competitive advantage? Is our actual risk level consistent with our risk appetite? If board members and executive managers have difficulty answering any of these questions, it is time to talk risk appetite at the top level. A good description of a companys risk appetite will have qualitative as well as quantitative elements. On various issues, it may include definitions of what is acceptable and what is not. A company might state it does not accept any risk of regulatory infringements. Or a company might decide that it will only approve expansion in new business areas if and when it has gathered sufficient knowledge of the specifically business issues and risks involved, and if the organizational and technical infrastructure is in place to effectively manage these risks. Once the organizations overall risk appetite has been clearly defined, the board and executive management should communicate it broadly throughout the organization to ensure all actions of the company are in line with the risk appetite. At the same time, executive management should operationally the risk appetite in various steps and for all relevant risks and business units. Again, this top-down process is similar to the one normally followed in performance management. Risk appetite regarding the companys strategic goals should be translated into risk tolerance for specific categories of risk, e.g., strategic, operational, financial and compliance risks. More operational than risk appetite, risk tolerance expresses the specific maximum risk that an organization is willing to take regarding each relevant risk (sub-) category, often in quantitative terms. Obviously, for each risk category, the resulting risk tolerance should be in line with the organizations risk appetite. In the area of human resources, for example, a company can define its risk tolerance regarding overall staff turnover: it should not exceed 15% per year. In a next step, management can cascade risk tolerance further down the risk management pyramid and set risk targets for different business units. A risk target is the optimal level of risk that an organization wants to take in pursuit of a specifi c business goal. Through the risk target, a company defines the desired balance between risk and reward. The risk target correlates risk tolerance to specific business plans and business metrics. Setting the risk target should be based on the desired return, on the risks implicit in trying to achieve those returns and on a companys capability of managing those risks. A risk target for a business unit selling products that become obsolete quite quickly could be to realize 30% of sales from products that have been on the market for less than two years. The risk target can be expressed as a point between an upper and a lower risk limit: thresholds to monitor that actual risk exposure does not deviate too much from the desired optimum. Breaching risk limits will typically act as a trigger for corrective action at the process level. If a business unit reaches the upper risk limit, it will have to manage down its risk level, unless a new analysis of the risk/return balance justifies the r isk position. If a lower risk limit is breached, i.e., if the actual risk taking falls below a minimum, the business unit should add more risk unless the return on this extra risk taking is not deemed adequate. For example, a company could set its minimum/maximum limits for annual asset turnover at 1.5% and 2.5% respectively, or a company could determine minimum and maximum limits for warranty claims: 2% and 5% of units sold. A company can monitor and manage its most important risk targets, limits and tolerance through a set of key risk indicators (KRIs). KRIs can be expressed in a variety of units, according to the specific risk under discussion: a percentage of faulty products, a number of hours lost due to work-related accidents, a monetary value such as net debt or a ratio, e.g., EBITDA/interest expenses. Of course, great care should be taken when defining a KRI: is the KRI really measuring what we want it to measure? And if so, are we measuring it correctly? In order to balance risks and opportunities correctly and to obtain the best possible alignment of performance management and risk management, each KRI should be linked to a key performance indicator (KPI). KPIs have long played an essential role in performance management. As explained in our paper A new balanced scorecard. Measuring performance and risk, one of the most effective ways to link performance and risk management is to integrate risk factors and risk management in a companys performance management tool of choice. Currently, the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is by far the most popular such tool. For each of the four main areas in the classic BSC (market; operations; organization), a company defines its goals and the related KPIs. By enhancing the BSC with KRIs, a company can integrate performance and risk management; it can measure and monitor performance and risk at the same time, as part of the same process. If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the moment to quit. Chinese Proverb Time is an essential factor in defining risk appetite and risk tolerance. In business, too, the time horizon of a risk is an essential element in defining the risk appetite. When this time aspect of risk is not taken openly into account when discussing appetite and tolerance regarding specific risks, confusion is almost inevitable. Normally, executive management and the board tend to have a longer, more strategic time horizon when they talk about performance and risk than lower management that is often focused on meeting quarterly or at the most yearly targets. A longer time horizon, however, comes with a different risk appetite and risk tolerance than a short one. Companies should realize this and communicate these differences explicitly, in order to avoid confusion and misunderstandings that will only detract from the effectiveness of its risk management. Two managers cannot come to a common view on risk appetite and risk tolerance if one of them exclusively fo cuses on strategic risks over the next 10 years, while the other is fully absorbed by the risks of not making the quarterly numbers for financial performance, customer satisfaction or product quality (G. Johnson, K. Scholes, R. Whittington). COUNTERING THE FLAWS: TEN ESSENTIAL SKILLS The authors (Frederick Funston, Stephen Wagner and Henry Ristuccia) have identified 10 essential risk intelligence skills that correspond with and counter the 10 fatal flaws. These can be used to help exercise better judgment and make better decisions under even the most uncertain and chaotic conditions: 1. Check your assumptions at the door The greatest source of risk and opportunity lies in ones assumptions. Author Nassim Taleb has used the metaphor of the black swan to describe the mental models people create that lead them to believe that extreme events are exceptionally rare. He argues that these black swans cannot be predicted. However, the authors believe that conventional assumptions can be seen as the white swans and their direct opposite are the black swans, which may either be killer risks or enormous opportunities. Simply conducting business based on tradition, habit or operating on autopilot can lead to a businesss downfall. Among other differences, in contrast to the formal, hierarchical corporate structures common to the industry. By understanding current assumptions about the business environment and the existing business model and describing their antitheses, enterprise leaders can identify the characteristics of major shifts in advance and whether they are beneficial or adverse. They can defend against adverse black swans or they can become the industry black swan by changing the conventional model and adopting an offensive position. 2. Maintain constant vigilance A study reported in an aerospace medical journal found that 80 percent of accidents are caused by operator error and 80 percent of operator errors are caused by lack of vigilance or situational awareness. Once the signals of a shift (black swan) have been identified and the shifts implications understood, the enterprise can set up early warning systems that enable rapid detection and provide the opportunity for first mover advantage. This is not about prediction; its about awareness and early detection, which enables preparation and rapid adaptive response. In situations of sudden, sharp change, information overload, isolated communications, lack of a shared central nervous system, or perceptual blind spots become barriers to information sharing. How does one identify a weak signal amidst a lot of background noise? First, know what you are looking for (black swans), then set up signal detection mechanisms, develop a range of potential responses and then maintain constant vigilance. These same concerns apply to failures to see shifts in the industry business model. Success tends to breed complacency and a resistance to change that which has produced past success. Effective signal detection systems are a challenge to develop, but if people can become more alert to signals that may contradict their current worldview, it can lead to major opportunities and better defenses. 3. Factor in velocity and momentum Opportunity is brief and disaster can strike swiftly. Bad things often seem to happen much faster than good things, yet conventional risk assessments typically evaluate likelihood and not swiftness. Only those who are adequately prepared will have the ability to respond quickly and the resilience to overcome adversity. The news is often replete with stories of business failures, product recalls, tainted products and services, executive scandals and corporate malfeasance. How can companies identify such risks before they manifest themselves? The ways in which crises and their effects develop vary with their velocity and momentum. So instead of asking, How likely is it that this event-good or bad-will happen? ask instead, How good or bad can it get, and how fast can it get that way? Those questions help frame what the organization must do to improve its resilience and agility regardless of the size of the risk factor. 4. Manage the key connections The difficulty and interconnectedness of the global business environment mak es it very difficult to see how one set of events can affect another. This skill and the corresponding tools help the enterprise understand its critical dependencies, how long it can go without them, and how it can improve its chances of survival. Managing key connections requires in-depth understanding of the organization, knowing where vulnerabilities lie and making conscious decisions about which ones to accept and which to mitigate. Without the resulting transparency, the enterprise may be unprepared for either profound disruption or opportunity. 5. Anticipate causes of failure One of the greatest challenges for any enterprise is to discuss constructively how it might fail so that it can act to prevent such failure. Perhaps the second greatest challenge is to identify potential failure quickly and escalate it to the appropriate level for remediation. Certain organizational cultures inhibit such communication and often delay or misrepresent critical messages. The beneficial i dentification and timely communication of failure or potential failure is an essential skill. One tool of quality and process improvement, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), poses forward-looking questions to help locate areas of risks or the possibility of missed or sub-optimized gains. 6. Verify sources and corroborate information When it is too good to be true, it often is not believable. Given that risk management aims to develop the best intelligence available to support decision-making, it is essential to have both credible sources and substantiate information to exercise the best judgment under the circumstances. The board is ultimately responsible for governance of the enterprise, but management is responsible for managing the business, including identifying key risks and avoiding them or accepting and mitigating them. Management has to provide reasonable assurance to the board that the risks that are being taken to create competitive advantage are within the app roved risk appetite and that controls are in place to detect and either prevent, correct or escalate risks to existing assets. 7. Maintain a margin of safety High leverage and low liquidity leave no margin for safety. No margin for safety leaves a margin for error. Leaders need to maintain confidence in their abilities, while also knowing their limitations. No leader or organization is too big or too smart to fail, to take the wrong risks, or to become overly leveraged. This skill focuses on ways to establish and maintain an appropriate margin of safety. 8. Set your enterprise time horizons Recent emphasis on immediate profit over sustainability and long-term growth can lead to shortness where enterprises choose to maximize short-term gains in ways that jeopardize their chances of long-term survival. The attitude and practice can be changed, but leaders have to also bring analysts and investors around to a longer-term perspective, favoring quick profits over longer-term perf ormance results in an enterprise and an economy that cannot create or sustain long-term growth. It sometimes becomes easier for directors to focus on the oversight of compliance at the expense of competitiveness. This skill helps leaders to remain mindful of critical strategic considerations at all times to ensure continuation of success in areas that require long-term thinking, such as global competitiveness, RD investments, environmental sustainability and corporate responsibility. 9. Take enough of the right risks Competitive advantage requires calculated risk taking. All risks cannot be eliminated and not all risk-related decisions will be correctly made. Every organization needs to understand what risks it is taking and decide whether the potential for reward warrants the risk or not. The enterprise needs to distinguish between risks that are right or wrong for the enterprise and its current capabilities. Risk appetite defines the types of risk that leaders are willing t o take (or not take). Risk appetites will vary according to the type of risk under consideration. Using a risk intelligent approach, companies need to have an appetite for rewarded risks, such as those associated with new product development or new market entry, and ought to have a much lower appetite or tolerance for unrewarded risks, such as non-compliance or operational failures. While the CEO proposes risk appetite levels, the board ought to approve them or challenge them and send them back to the CEO for adjustments based on an evaluation of their position with business strategy and stakeholders expectations. 10. Sustain operational discipline Sustainable success demands discipline. This is the final, vital risk intelligence skill because without it risk intelligence cannot be implemented or maintained, assumptions will not be challenged; warning signals will not be detected, transmitted; potential causes of failure will not be addressed; sources will not be verified. The a bsence of operational discipline can undermine a successful enterprise, but most enterprises do not attain success without a high level of operational discipline. It is operational discipline that enables organizations to survive crises and to maintain high standards of performance and integrity while experiencing extraordinary success (G.A. Cole). CONCLUSION Risk is a fundamental part of business. But that doesnt mean all risks are the same. Companies that focus on the wrong risks are wasting their time and money and ultimately, short-changing their shareholders. A delicate balance between risk taking and exploiting business opportunities, winning businesses will be those that are best able to balance coping strategies, which are defensive and focused on avoiding downside risks, with an increasing mix of exploitation strategies, which embrace risk and make the most of the opportunities it presents. Surviving and thriving in the uncertainty and turbulence that has characterized the first decade of this century requires unconventional thinking and calculated risk taking. To do this well, the enterprise needs to be viewed holistically. Between the two extremes of life and death, people and companies have choices to make and options to explore by way of adapting and possibly extending their longevity and success. The successful enterprise incorporates risk intelligence into the ways it understands and manages the business. Risks must be taken to seize opportunities, and they must be managed not simply avoided. They must also be analyzed for their complexity and interactivity. Anticipation and preparation are the key to survival and success. As Hippocrates reminds us, judgment will always be difficult. Consistent practice of the 10 skills we have described can aid superior judgment. One of the greatest challenges of effective enterprise management with regard to defining roles and responsibilities is the fine line between board oversight and management execution. The boards role is to oversee but not manage. Generally, the board should take the longer view, assessing alignment of risk appetite with managements decisions and recommendations but without actually attempting to directly manage risks themselves. This is a difficult and delicate task in which to achieve the right balance. Directors need to have reasonable a ssurance that executives are appropriately managing the risks that do not need to come to the boards attention. It is also essential that the board obtain independent reassurance that managements reports are reliable. For those decisions that do come to the board, it can judge for itself how well the risks are being managed. Boards and management have to work together to ensure that what they each think is happening is actually happening. Organizations cannot allow their hope to become their only strategy.