Business management Premji 2

Need a 100 word reply to each of these statements.  Also need a direct question back to the student. Here is the question that they are replying to:

Premji states that companies must "..foster environments in which workers feel safe taking risks, even when they fail." What do you think of this? Would an environment that allows for risk taking and possible failure be possible in your workplace?

Student 1:

hen it comes to talking about taking risks this is such a double-edged sword to me. I do believe in taking risks, but for myself I seem to try to take calculated ones that don’t have a possible wide impact on making huge financial despair or life threating (to others). I like the article from Premji and I can relate with his logic on risk taking. I worked for a company for a short time after I got out of the military that dealt in the retail business. I could make decisions as a manager that would have impacts on making higher revenue advancements. When I speak on how I make calculated risks is by when I would make for trying to sell a new or older product. I wanted to know what the consumer felt about it first. I was very involved as a manager being very visible and communicated thoroughly with customers. I feel making “risks’ in this industry should be done by consumer thoughts. I did take risks on implementing new products and they were very successful due to knowing my audience. Taking risks can make for better processes and make things feel new rather than old and played out in the retail industry. Even failure I guess can make for knowing that one tried but didn’t make the proper decisions on a product or timing. 

When I was in the military risk was inevitable mainly in wartime type setting. The harsh thing about making risky decisions is that it could ultimately cause for someone to lose their life. I feel risk is the actual name for war. The whole process is “RISK” but how things end up is how one planned or decided on the risk processes. Unfortunately, if risky decisions are not made then the enemy can get the upper hand due to them taking risky decisions themselves. Its who ever make the right risk decision at the right time and place can make for the victor. The military plans and prepares for all facets of risks and ensures that soldiers know them also. Everyone who joins the service knows the risk, mainly the ones who has joined during the past 16 years of sustained war.

Student 2:

     I think that taking risks for the sake of innovation is necessary regardless of what the organizational environment is and organizations that do not take risks are going to fall victim to their competition surpassing them.  Innovation is a necessity and, “management guru Peter Drucker warned, ‘An established company which, in an age demanding innovation, is not capable of innovation is doomed to decline and extinction’” (Dess, Lumpkin, Eisner, McNamara, 2014, p. 381).  If an organization never takes risk, they will be stuck in the old ways that they have always done things as the environment changes around them and they will be left behind as the rest of the world moves forward.  So I think that risk taking should be encouraged and failures should be looked at and evaluated as learning experiences so that lessons learned can then be applied to future risk taking efforts.  Risks should always be calculated though and the result of strategic planning efforts.  They should be deliberative, aligned with the organizational mission and objectives, and should factor in environmental analyses.  

            In my workplace, where we are so limited on resources like personnel, funding, and equipment innovation is almost a necessity to get the mission done.  A good example that I can recall specifically dealing with innovation is the effort of a single member at my unit to create a “first of its kind” command and control (C2) center at our squadron.  He worked during his free time and tied up a ton of squadron resources into the project for a plan that was unproven.  He did all of this with a very strategic plan though and he was approved to proceed by leadership.  The project was finished about a year ago and proved to be a huge success which allowed many of us to complete currency requirements from the C2 center back home as opposed to having to spend a ton of our squadron’s time and budget on training trips.  The center also boasts what is being considered as state of the art communication capabilities and the project as a whole is now being looked at as a standard that may be implemented into many of our sister squadrons.  The implementation, if executed correctly will free up a lot of money for us that we can dedicate towards other training efforts and buying new equipment for the personnel at our squadron.