Taking Risks
“What has been your experience with taking risks in your job?”
- “One of my jobs in mergers and acquisitions was to research
and analyze risks and benefits of possible deals. I discovered
some high-risk factors while researching one company and could
not recommend the deal based on my findings. I knew that my
manager wanted this particular deal to go through and that she
wouldn’t be happy with my findings. I put together the facts
and figures on spread-sheets and made a presentation to her.
Although disappointed, she trusted my work and was satisfied
that I had exhibited due diligence in getting the facts needed.”
- “One example of taking a risk and trying something new is
when I was able to lead a cross-functional team in a company
that had never used cross-functional teams before. As the lead
engineer I decided to try an experiment and took people from
various functions and cross-trained them. It was a huge success,
and production doubled in a month. The employees really accepted
it because it made them feel like they were learning something
new that would be of value to them in future jobs. It was received
well by management and is now a common practice at the company.”
- “There is always a risk when analyzing data and breaking
it down so that the customer can understand the facts. I did
this for a man who was having a difficult time understanding
the numbers and was refusing to buy until he did. I ran several
compilations for him—some which was not the usual information
we share. I thought in this case it would benefit the sale if
he could understand all the data. I spent extra time with him
until he was he able to recognize the benefit that we offered.
I took a risk of putting in extra effort, and it paid off.”
阅读导航 Have you ever not taken a risk and later regretted it?