archie flockhart (6/19/2012)

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The worship of 'risk-takers' seems to me to be based, at least in large part, on "survival bias": pointing at a few lucky people whose risks paid off.

There were far more 'risk takers' who tried to build flying machines and never got off the ground ( or worse, plunged to a messy end on the rocks below ); and thousands of people who set up computer companies that went broke, taking their founders' and investors' money with them.

The guy in this Dilbert cartoon is every bit as much a 'risk taker' as, say, Bil Gates.

[url=http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1991-03-25/][/url]

As for "Joe"'s company in the article: encouraging risk and encouraging excellence are two different things.

Duncan P (6/19/2012)

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Taking a risk for a big payoff is one thing, but many people (without any other kind of safety net - e.g. a wealthy family) will not want to experience the flip side of risk i.e. failure, given that it could entail losing their job or livelihood. Keeping what you have, which is tangible, is worth more than some intangible reward that may or may not come your way.

I'm all for taking a risk, providing I don't have to suffer too much if it all goes wrong!

TravisDBA (6/19/2012)

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Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not that one has better abilities or ideas over the other, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk and to act. Taking a risk is a gamble. Always has been.

j_e_o (6/19/2012)

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The bottom line is that if a company does not take sufficient risk to maintain or increase their market share then ultimately they will spiral down into oblivion and be forced to put up the "Going out of business" sign. Therefore, to avoid insolvency, companies must ask their employees to identify strategies, that involve risk, to improve or maintain the bottom line.

Lehman Brothers is a great example of companies that "gambled" rather than take calculated risks. What they did was criminally irresponsible and, quite frankly, stupid. Their methodology was comparable to any pyramid scheme: the "value" of the mortgage backed securities could only be sustained if the properties that backed them "never" depreciated. That expectation was patently ridiculous over time but it sure looked good in the short term.

That is very different from calculated risk taking and or taking a calculated gamble.