“A ship that never leaves its home port will never encounter rough seas.” How true this is. And I have a corollary,… If you refuse to accept some risk, risk will come looking for you.

Many business people live on their reputation because of some great gamble they took when they were young (and probably didn’t know any better). They get to a point I their career when they go into maintenance mode. They want to play it safe. They lose their edge and an understanding of the relationship between risk and reward. External environments present a number of conditions that will challenge the manager. Carl Strikwerda writes, “The only way for colleges to survive into the 21st century, we are told, is to innovate constantly, abandon old habits, and set out in search of new business models.”

The pendulum, though, can swing in the opposite direction. We all have stories of business people who loved the thrill of trying something new. They got bored with the old and led their business right down the tubes. (Usually it’s the enterprising young manager who doesn’t have anything of a tangible nature invested in the business.)

After explaining Strikwerda’s ideas, talk about them in a business context and – using Williams – discuss how a manager finds balance.