1. Assess your risk-taking style.

How do you determine when is the optimal time to take risk?

How do you accelerate your knowledge on the risk you are about to take?

What do you gain or lose with a single decision?

When do you give up on an idea you have been pursuing?

Whom do you find to mentor you on the bigger risk-taking?

2. Know your people (including directors, shareholders, and executive leadership team).

Who’s a risk-taker, and who is risk-averse?

In general, where does each person fall on the Risk Continuum— more toward behaviors that are static on one side or chaotic on the other, or something in between? Regarding the actions of others, when do they lean toward control? When do they allow for more freedom?

What special skills and interests do your employees have? Are they hobbyists with a special skill? What are they passionate about? Which have you not utilized in the business?

Do you allow everyone the opportunity to be innovative? If so, how?

3. Know your processes.

Do you have a formal innovation process in place that includes the whole organization, such as improvisational innovation (refer to the Improvisational Innovation chapter)?

What structures are in place to encourage and reward idea development?

How do you green light ideas?

Under what circumstances might your managers kill ideas?

How do you get ideas from your less outgoing people?

How do you catalog ideas and their results?