Risk analysis is an essential topic for many companies.
In a market in which costs for organisations are constantly increasing, mistakes are expenses that many don’t want and can’t afford.
More and more often, among the main priorities of organisations we find the attempt to reduce risks and margins for error, standardising the ordinary as much as possible. Fixed procedures, repeated activities, consolidated tasks: organisations use all tools at their disposal to perfect execution and reduce the risk of mistakes.
This is obviously very useful in daily activities, in the implementation of standard processes for the production of consolidated output.
But when should we innovate? When is the goal not to produce the usual result, but to raise the bar? Constant improvement is necessary in order to avoid being left behind, outrun by others. And this doesn’t necessarily call for disruption. Actually, it’s usually incremental innovation that allows companies to ride the wave, and to be able to reach it requires the right mindset – one that allows for continuous change.
Risk analysis is an essential topic for many companies.
In a market in which costs for organisations are constantly increasing, mistakes are expenses that many don’t want and can’t afford.
More and more often, among the main priorities of organisations we find the attempt to reduce risks and margins for error, standardising the ordinary as much as possible. Fixed procedures, repeated activities, consolidated tasks: organisations use all tools at their disposal to perfect execution and reduce the risk of mistakes.
This is obviously very useful in daily activities, in the implementation of standard processes for the production of consolidated output.
But when should we innovate? When is the goal not to produce the usual result, but to raise the bar? Constant improvement is necessary in order to avoid being left behind, outrun by others. And this doesn’t necessarily call for disruption. Actually, it’s usually incremental innovation that allows companies to ride the wave, and to be able to reach it requires the right mindset – one that allows for continuous change.
As we already know, this isn’t a challenge reserved for tech companies, but a conditio sine qua non for staying in the market and being competitive – one that is valid in all fields. When you enter this new environment of “experimentation”, you have to try doing something new: if the regular result is no longer enough, the only way to get a different one is to change something along the way.
You HAVE TO give yourself margins for error – there is no such thing as innovation without risk. But in this case, it’s not a negative possibility. It’s another way of looking at error – not as an unrecoverable cost, but as an investment with very high ROI potential. Two different worlds.
In this way, while companies try to standardise processes, they have also learned to give space in the field of research, calculating exactly how much they can afford to risk (above all in economic terms).
Failure, in this context, is a possibility. And it should almost be welcomed as a source of learning.
M4810 represents this latter type of innovation. When you take the first steps in a new direction - like that of applying Change Management techniques in extreme situations, far removed from the comfort zone of the classic school of thought - every result is an occasion to learn.
We are here to validate or refute some theories and practices. We are here to teach our clients to do the same, testing it on our own skin first.
But from the point of view of the mountains, the prospective changes completely. Up there, among the peaks of snow, we find ourselves in the quintessential land of the unpredictable.
And the tolerance for error in the mountains is very, very different. The consolidated goal is to reduce risk as much as possible, given that it’s impossible to avoid it completely and that there will always be threats to consider.
In this case, the approach should be more similar to the first type, reducing to a minimum the possibility for “predictable” mistakes because there will always be unexpected variables – objective and subjective risks. We have to try to make our predictions as precise as possible, but we will never be one hundred percent sure.
The choice of when to climb the Mont Blanc is a perfect example of this: within the 3-month window in the summer, what moment exactly is the least risky?
This is the question that led us and our guides to choosing a date in July, as well as to many other decisions related to the project.
In the end, there are two ways to approach an expedition like M4810, two faces of the same coin that must be balanced. The necessary push towards change, innovation, and experimentation on one side. And on the other, the uncompromisable need to ensure safety and to reduce risks to a minimum.
We will have to standardise incremental efficiency, in the meantime finding space for change and innovation, literally step by step.
