When carrying out risk assessments and creating the associated risk registers, most people tend to focus on the negatives. But not all risks are negative – some can be positive. In fact, if it wasn’t for the positive risks, and the ability to successfully exploit them, there wouldn’t be successful businesses.

So it follows that risk management isn’t just about avoiding the bad stuff – it’s also about positive risk taking. It’s about balancing the potential downsides against the potential opportunities. Therefore, when carrying out our risk assessments, whilst it’s extremely important to think about those downsides, we should consider the opportunities as well as the threats.

So why not add an “opportunities” column to your risk assessment flip chart and to your risk registers and think about the potential positives as well as the negatives.

You might even consider holding the occasional “opportunity assessment” workshop in addition to your risk assessment ones.