Sometimes the only way to reduce risk is to take the risk of change.

If a company does not change its price, a competitor may change theirs. If it does not rebuild its format, customer behaviour will change. If it does not close an unprofitable location, the loss will recur every month. If it does not invest in a new capability, the gap will widen.

Failing to decide does not stop the environment. It means only that the company allows its future to be shaped, to a greater extent, by other people’s decisions.

A new strategy may fail. A new channel may not reach scale. Restructuring may cause turbulence. Changing the model may cost more than we assumed. All of this can go into a presentation under the heading “risks”.

The risk of the status quo looks different. It is diffuse. It shows up in a small fall in margin, in slightly slower growth, in the departure of a few good people, in successive promotions, in an ageing format, in the gradual loss of the brand’s relevance. Each of these signals taken separately may not look dramatic. Together they may mean that the company is losing its position.

In difficult decisions it is worth ceasing to compare “we change” with “we do nothing”. “Doing nothing” is also a strategy. It has its own assumptions, its own consequences, its own cost, its own risk. A fair comparison should therefore look different:

Scenario A — we make the change.

• What can we gain?
• What can we lose?
• How reversible is the decision?
• How long do we need to see a result?

Scenario B — we keep the current model.

• What will happen to results in 6, 12 and 24 months?
• Which problems will grow?
• Which options might we lose?
• Will a later change be more expensive?

Only then do we see the real risk profile.

Sometimes the choice is not between safety and risk. It is between a high probability of an outcome we do not want and an uncertain possibility of a much better one.

If the current trajectory is taking the company somewhere we already regard as unacceptable, continuing on it only because it is familiar is not a conservative strategy. It is the acceptance of a foreseeable failure.

This is not about bravado. A good decision still requires data, scenarios, limits, phasing, checkpoints and the ability to withdraw if the hypothesis proves wrong.

A bold strategic decision does not mean: “let’s risk everything”. It may mean: “let’s design the change so that we test the most important assumptions before we increase our exposure”. That is an enormous difference.

Not every risk has to be taken at full scale. You can enter one market instead of five, test a format, build an MVP, launch a pilot, change part of the portfolio, renegotiate selected terms, introduce phased funding.

Good strategy often consists precisely in maximising the ability to learn before a decision becomes hard to reverse.

In business, the ability to choose is also a form of value. A company with liquidity can restructure on its own terms. A company with a strong brand can change its model before customers leave. A company with good people can carry out a transformation before the team breaks up.

The longer we put off a difficult decision, the fewer options may remain available. That is why sometimes the risk of change should be taken precisely in order to retain control over future decisions.

There is no business without risk. There is, however, a business that manages risk. And a business that pretends it is not taking risk because it changes nothing.

The most important question is therefore not: “Is this change risky?” Almost certainly it is. The question is: “Is the risk of this change greater than the risk of staying where we are?” Sometimes the answer leads to a conclusion that seems paradoxical at first:

the safest decision is to take the risk.