Embracing Risk

For those who aspire to improve their ability to take entrepreneurial
risks, the Innovative Brain research from Cambridge
offers important lessons. First, not all risk taking is haphazard.
Entrepreneurs, who as a group have an advantage in risk
taking, routinely take risks to realize rewarding outcomes.
The study found that entrepreneurs are not only good at
taking risks, it’s what separates them from others as a bunch.
Their edge isn’t connected to intelligence, Ivy League pedigrees,
or decades of business experience. The researchers
did, however, find a defined link to physiology. Impulsivity
or a bias to action, when combined with a personality that
is adaptable and capable of flexible problem solving, gives
people who take risks for gain a particular edge.
Impulsivity left to its own devices can be dangerous, leading
to poor decisions that could negatively affect all aspects
of a person’s life (e.g., drug abuse or deviant social behavior).
But when counterbalanced with an adaptable personality,
the impulsive person knows how to make the best of any situation.
The result is a winning combination of risk seeking
and adaptability that enables entrepreneurs to profit from
uncertainty.