Risk mitigation and decision making are two topics that go hand-in-hand. You can’t make good decisions without understanding the risks that come with the various choices.
Risk is not always a negative consequence. A lot of time risk goes by another name: opportunity cost. Risk can often be best described as the downside difference of potential outcomes. The greater the best to worst potential outcomes (even if all outcomes are good), the greater the risk.
Sometimes we get thrown off by the word Risk. It has a negative connotation to it. Maybe it comes from all the awful hours spent playing the painful board game of the same name. Maybe it is simply that the association of risk in our minds is tied to the idea of losing money. Regardless, risk is something that exists in all decisions.
There is risk to every post I write. If I publish as-is am I leaving readers out that wanted something shorter? If I don’t spend more time editing do I hurt my credibility through the use of bad grammar? Is this really a topic that is worth posting here? These are all risks – every, ordinary, daily risks.
Thinking through the downside is how good decisions are made – even when the downside is still a good outcome. Maximizing upside is always worthwhile.