Team Management Systems E-Book Series: Stumbling Blocks or Stepping Stones? Dealing with risk at work

This e-book looks at the concept of Risk-Orientation and the key components that will help determine whether someone is likely to be risk averse or risk accepting. Risk-Orientation fills the middle section of The Workplace Pyramid, which was the subject of the third e-book in this series. The base of the Pyramid was dealt with in the second e-book, Values in the Workplace, and the apex of the Pyramid is discussed in the sixth book, Developing Teams.

Knowledge of how people approach risk is important to managing them and maximizing their potential. Someone who is very accepting of high risks may be happy undertaking entrepreneurial activities. Someone who is risk averse may make a major contribution in disaster recovery, contingency planning or security areas.

Individuals' approach to risk can have a major impact on team dynamics. If everyone in a team has a high level of risk acceptance then the probability of failure increases. If everyone has a low tolerance for risk then change may never happen. Where there are individual differences in risk levels then debate in the team may be heated and conflict may not be far from the surface. Simply by understanding how different risk approaches play out in behavior at work can make individuals and team leaders far more effective.

Dick McCann
Author

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