Tag: Risk

Can your business still operate?

If not, it probably means that you do not have a Business Continuity Plan. This is an essential tool for your business as it is the procedure that you will use in time of a crisis, that includes information intended to ensure the ability of the services provided to continue in the event of a serious business interruption.
The roles and responsibilities of individuals are detailed, as are the tasks that should be followed to ensure an effective response to an adverse situation.
The objectives of the Business Continuity Plan are as follows:


• Safety and welfare of employees, visitors and the public are protected at all times


• The impact of the incident on the local community and the environment is minimised


• Continue to deliver crucial services to your customers


• The impact of any incident on your business is brought under control and minimised.


• Quick and appropriate response is made to any adverse situation that may arise.


• Fast and accurate assessment and verification of the potential impacts of the situation.


• Matching the degree and nature of the response to the potential impact.


• Clear and appropriate communication being made with management, employees and customers


The business continuity plan is designed to provide a framework for a structured response to any practicably foreseeable incident resulting in actual potential harm, damage or injury to people, the environment or assets associated with the business.


The business continuity plan is written assuming numerous scenarios associated with the operation of the business ranging from total loss of the facility through to lesser incidents that can be managed through reference to the relevant sections of the plan and utilisation of the recovery strategies. A key part of the business continuity plan is the assessment of key risks for the business that assesses the likelihood, potential severity and possible mitigations for the risks specific to the business, and prior consideration of potential alternative providers for key capabilities.
The business continuity plan is intended to provide task information relating to the emergency response only.

How to be a Responsible Coach

Assuming the Responsibilities that come with Being a Coach

Who can forget the famous line of Peter Parker (Spiderman’s grandfather)? He said, with great power comes great responsibility.

Society expects TV and movie superhero with extraordinary powers to be responsible for saving his town and the world from the forces of Evil. And he never let us down. Despite the temptations of owning such powers, he uses his abilities only for the good of the people around him.

Being a coach has similar parallels. Great coaches can have real power through their abilities to help others and with it, the responsibility to guide others towards success. This is REAL power that can be used to help real people in THIS world. Done well, coaches can help others turn around their lives. Done wrong, and a coach could guide a client down the wrong path.

So, with this power to coach your clients towards manifesting their personal and/or business vision comes responsibilities. Great coaches assume them all as part of the professional responsibility. This can include everything from making sure your client is moving in the right direction, getting them back on course when they are not, and developing and tracking their use of exercises to help them along the way.

There are a few things you can do to be a more responsible coach. Just as important, these same skills can be imparted to your clients to help them lead more responsible, integrity-filled lives.

How to Bring out the more Responsible You in Yourself and your Client

#1 – Develop self-awareness.
Learn and know your own strengths and weaknesses to be able to view your behaviour objectively. Recognise your shortcomings, receive feedback, and make changes when necessary. The more self-aware you become of all your aspects, the more you will know what kind of clients you can coach best and just as important those best referred to others.
The lesson is simple: the more we grow, the more we can offer, and the more we can help others.

#2: Learn to Separate Responsibility from Worry
When we hear the word responsibility, we often think to ourselves, Another task, another problem. However, responsibility is not about worrying over things given to us to work out. Consider this story:

One night at the end of the second shift, the Head of Operations walked out of the plant he managed and passed a labourer. The labourer said, “Mr. Smith, I sure wish I had your pay. But I wouldn’t want the worry that goes with it.”

Mr. Smith answered, “I give the best I can when I am here. But I drop the worry when I leave so I can be 100% with my family when I’m at home.”

You, too, can learn to give your best to challenging work, but then leave it at the door when your off-hours. Worrying accomplishes nothing except to eat away at us, and actually ends up making us less effective! Don’t let worry taint your clarity of judgment and ability to take decisive action. You can learn this as you grow.

Carrying the responsibility of coaching should not intimidate you. It is the ability to help others that coaching is all about. Embrace the responsibilities that come with it.

Nothing is gained by worrying about whether your clients achieve their goals or not. Focus on supporting and inspiring them. Be their partner in their growth. Brainstorm with them when it is called for. But ultimately, it is your client’s responsibility to assume responsibility for accomplishing their goals. You merely help them see and achieve this state.

#3: Take Calculated Risks and Learn from Your Mistakes

Effective coaches have the courage to ask their clients to take risks when results and success are uncertain. A willingness to risk failure is a core attribute of all successful people.

As a coach you can help your clients work with risk and possible failure. Help them learn to analyse their situation and options. Work with them to list the pros and cons for each option, then assign each choice a risk factor rating from 1 to 5. Next, have them determine the likelihood of each occurring. This will help them quantify and manage the risk-taking process.
Also, lead them to a better paradigm regarding failure. What is failure other than great feedback that our current course of action is not the right path? Use this information for course correction. Failure doesn’t happen until we give up. If you don’t give up, then failure is not an option.

#4: Own and admit our mistakes
Our greatest lessons and growth come through our mistakes. Everyone makes them; it is part of life. Help your client understand this, and they will be able to draw the necessary lessons and take corrective action. If we do the blame game, we don’t even take the first step (ownership) in this process.

Not only does owning our mistakes and failures help us to be more truthful and powerful in our own lives. Owning and assuming responsibility for them lets others see the integrity and virtue within us, and hence further gain their respect.

Risk Managing your Business

Introduction

So you have built up your business and things are going well when all of a sudden you are hit with something unexpected that has an impact on your business could you deal with it? Most entrepreneurs will fail at this point and maybe have to rethink their strategy and lose time and money implementing the changes. Most problems can be managed if you take the time to consider the risks to your business and have processes and procedures in place that kick in when there is a problem. As property investors or entrepreneurs we are considered risk takers or chancers by people that will not take the same risk as us. Let’s consider that for a moment, did we just take a risk without thinking things through and hoped for the best or did we do our due diligence and analysed things first? Although there are some people out there who did things on a wing and prayer, the majority of people analysed things first, so it is a risk, based on thought and data. By doing our due diligence we can decide what is an acceptable risk before taking the plunge. Therefore the perception of being risk takers and chancers is wrong, what we have become is informed business people. People associate risk with negativity, this, however, is incorrect as we can also use risk in a positive way because we have identified what it is and where possible we eliminate it.

Tools for Risk

There are a number of ways that we can look at risks to see if they are acceptable depending on the type of investment we want to undertake, these can range from a simple SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis to a more sophisticated PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) analysis. There are also a number of other tools that can be used in conjunction with the above analysis tools such as Pareto analysis, FMEA (Failure Modes and Effect Analysis), Fault Tree Analysis, Is – Is Not, etc. The main thing is that the tools are there to be used and failure to do so could result in you making the wrong decision which in turn could lead to losing money on your investment. However if you have taken your time to consider and manage the risk then if a problem arises it will not catch you out as you will have been prepared and a plan to mitigate the risk will then come into play.

If you are looking at property then you need to analyse the area for comparable properties in price, to see what the is the maximum done up value is for the property. You would also look at what the maximum rent you could charge, as both price and rent have a ceiling. You would also use one of the above tools to analyse the area to see if there are some plans or issues that could affect the price and rental of the property.

Conclusion

Due diligence should be the norm for an entrepreneur or property investor, and analysing the risk should become second nature. Failure to do so will eventually catch you out as there are only so many roles of the dice where you will be lucky. Failing to plan is planning to fail, therefore get acquainted with the tools that can help you understand, manage and mitigate risks, do not be afraid to ask questions and get into the detail of your planned investment, and get it right first time.

Recommended Reading

Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure- Proofing Your Project