Breakthroughs are what you can expect from a good risk workshop.

While I was writing this blog, I had to stop and go into an MS Teams meeting to meet the Chair of the Board of an organisation for whom I had been engaged to run a Board Risk Workshop. I explained the process I was going to use and stated the aim was to ensure a really valuable conversation.

I then asked the Chair if they had any specific expectations. They said, “Sounds excellent. I am always looking for “breakthroughs” from these workshops. That is, by discussing the things that might break us, we find things that allow us to breakthrough.”

What timing, I had just sat down to write about “Finding Opportunity through Enterprise Risk Workshops” and was gifted this gold. What the Chair said was absolutely spot on. By improving our understanding of key risks, and the scale of them, we can move onto the question of “What are we going to do about all of that?” And that is when those present, step into innovative thinking mode. And the bigger the risk the more innovative the thinking becomes, through necessity. That is, when whatever we have been doing is not good enough, we must try something else or we will simply have to live with it.

Do you have the same experience when you facilitate risk workshops? If not, you might want to look into the process you follow. Hint: it’s all in the preparation. Great preparation means great insights for decision makers. Something I go to in great detail in in my Mastering Risk Workshop Facilitation Course.