Risk Averse Quotes & Sayings

in business, being risk averse can result in stagnation. — Sheryl Sandberg

Often we women are risk averse. I needed the push. Now, more than ever, young women need more seasoned women to provide that encouragement, to take a risk, to go for it. Once a glass ceiling is broken, it stays broken. — Jennifer Granholm

The more risk averse a person is, the higher his or her religiosity [ ... ]. In other words, risk-averse people don't want to take a chance on getting on the wrong side of god. — Darrel Ray

Victims are also less likely to take initiative because they feel outcomes are not in their hands anyway. An organization filled with victims will generally have low morale, have more risk-averse behavior, and find it difficult to implement change. — John Izzo

I also am not particularly risk-averse - I don't mind jumping off a cliff if I trust the people who've told me they'll catch me at the bottom. — Jeff VanderMeer

There is a short window at the beginning of one's professional life, when it is comparatively easy to take big risks. Make the most of that time, before circumstances make you risk averse. — Joshua Foer

My advice to every student who is trying to make a decision for the years immediately after graduation: take the opportunity that in your mind is the most rewarding, that you are most passionate about and that you find most interesting and save the rest of your life for being risk averse. Whatever you want to do, this is the time to pursue it. Twenty years from now, your freedom to take risks will be limited. — Kenneth C. Griffin

Frankly, I guess, I don't really understand why people, why so many people, are so risk averse. You know, there's always ways to wiggle your way out of any situation if you're motivated enough. — Eric Betzig

We've become a country that is often risk averse. That's not the way to succeed. — Jerry Moran

Over time, big industries tend to get flabby and uncreative and risk-averse - and if the right outsider company has the means and creativity to come at the industry with a fresh perspective and rethink the whole thing, there's often a huge opportunity there. — Tim Urban

I don't think the government should touch art. Governments are risk averse. They encourage risk-averse personalities to be artists. — Dave Hickey

My philosophy, one of the biggest enemies of future success is past success, because you become complacent, you become risk averse, and that's one of the things we try to drive here, and this is fundamental to this philosophy, and that's in this component change, and also in value creation. That we need to drive creative destruction, not just incremental innovations, but innovations that will change the whole nature of the business. — Charles Koch

Easy success had transformed the American auto companies into risk-averse, nonmeritocratic, bloated bureaucracies. — Reid Hoffman

As a traditionally risk-averse nation, India has rarely been at the forefront of innovation. Indian companies have mostly imitated others and became very good at it. — Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

There was nothing less imaginative or more risk averse than the bureaucratic mind. — Jack Du Brul

I hate to say it because I think people are risk averse these days more than ever. Before they even pick up the phone, they know what the picture's going to be. So there's a certain comfort in that, a certain security that they can lay out the cover of the magazine and kind of know what it's going to be. — Gregory Heisler

People who are over-educated become risk-averse. — Tamara Mellon

If you are not making any mistakes, you are being excessively risk-averse. Investing involves risk, and that means you will occasionally be wrong. And although it is okay to be wrong, it is not okay to stay wrong. — Barry Ritholtz

You can't write novels about people who are timid, risk-averse and passive. Or you can, but they're called literary novels. — Ken Follett

I think in general, people who aren't themselves entrepreneurs are often more risk averse. And I think you see this dynamic a lot with entrepreneurial people who lead a company, which is that they hire people who complement them. — Leila Janah

Publishers are very risk-averse, so they lean towards licenses and sequels. But the fact is that even those are not guaranteed hits. So, if 'playing it safe' does not guarantee hits, they might as well leave it up to the really creative, risk-taking people, because they couldn't do any worse. — Tim Schafer

Term limits would make Congress bolder, more independent, and less risk-averse. — George Will

We are raising today's children in sterile, risk-averse and highly structured environments. In so doing, we are failing to cultivate artists, pioneers and entrepreneurs, and instead cultivating a generation of children who can follow the rules in organized sports games, sit for hours in front of screens and mark bubbles on standardized tests. — Darell Hammond

But when something like Angelina's murder happens," the doctor told him (Decker), "it's human nature to assume a bunker mentality. Let's shore up our defenses and put up our guard so that when something like this happens again -- when, not if -- we won't be blindsided. Problem is, we become so risk averse, we cut ourselves off from the potentially dangerous things that could bring great happiness and joy. We stop taking chances, and without those sometimes risky chances, there's no way we can win big. Our best case scenario become losing not /too/ badly. /At least no one died/ becomes our mantra. Yes, we're trapped here in this prison that we've made, where we can't possibly be happy, but at least we're not devastated by our loss and our grief. — Suzanne Brockmann

To tell a lie is to risk being caught out and there's excitement in avoiding traps: it was an aspect of my childhood I was perhaps averse to relinquishing. — Glenn Haybittle

Stress makes us prone to tunnel vision, less likely to take in the information we need. Anxiety makes us more risk-averse than we would be regularly and more deferential. — Noreena Hertz

As we get older, we tend to become more risk averse because we tend to find reasons why things won't work. When you are a kid, you think everything is possible, and I think with creativity it is so important to keep that naivety. — Heston Blumenthal

In a fear-based, failure-averse culture, people will consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. They will seek instead to repeat something safe that's been good enough in the past. Their work will be derivative, not innovative. But if you can foster a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen. — Ed Catmull

The civil service are risk averse. — Ken Livingstone

Now, it has been independently shown that people hate to lose something more than they enjoy gaining it. For example, they don't mind paying for something with a credit card even when told there is a discount for cash, but they hate paying the same amount if they are told there is a surcharge for using credit. As a result, people will often refuse to gamble for an expected profit (they turn down bets such as "Heads, you win $120; tails, you pay $100), but they will gamble to avoid an expected loss (such as "Heads, you no longer owe $120; tails, you now owe an additional $100"). (This kind of behavior drives economists crazy, but is avidly studied by investment firms hoping to turn it to their advantage.) The combination of people's loss aversion with the effects of framing explains the paradoxical result: the "gain" metaphor made the doctors risk-averse; the "loss" metaphor made them gamblers. — Steven Pinker

I've never been averse to a little risk - after all, writing without risk is not really writing at all. Sometimes one has to just let fly with a high concept piece and see where the pieces fall. As it generally turns out, the central story is familiar, but just with different rules of engagement. — Jasper Fforde

The major challenge facing most foundations is that they are risk averse. This inhibits their ability to experiment and commit to the experimentation and innovation process. — Steven Levitt

I had accumulated some capital and was at an age at which I was interested in generating income. But even though I was risk averse, I was interested in growth stocks. — James MacArthur

If we overregulate, over control, impose too many burdens and too much bureaucracy - or if we do it across the board, without taking into account the differences among businesses and their relative impact on society - that could make people risk-averse and dampen the entrepreneurial spirit. — Samuel J. Palmisano

We are risk averse by nature - but the only way you can reach your full potential is by taking chances. Understand that you are capable of far more than you've achieved, believe that you have something of value to share with the world, and take care to step outside of your comfort zone and into your greatness. Your courage will inspire others to do the same. — Les Brown

I've written about the giving of trust as though it were a simple formula for building loyalty. But it isn't simple at all. The talent that is an essential ingredient of leadership tells the leader whom to trust and how much to trust and when to trust. The rule is (as with children) that trust be given slightly in advance of demonstrated trustworthiness. But not too much in advance. You have to have an unerring sense of how much the person is ready for. Setting people up for failure doesn't make them loyal to you; you have to set them up for success. Each time you give trust in advance of demonstrated performance, you flirt with danger. If you're risk-averse, you won't do it. And that's a shame, because the most effective way to gain the trust and loyalty of those beneath you is to give the same in equal measure. — Tom DeMarco

before we can grasp the full meaning of the Resurrection, we first have to witness or experience crucifixion. If we spend our lives so afraid of suffering, so averse to sacrifice, that we avoid even the risk of persecution or crucifixion, then we might never discover the true wonder, joy and power of a resurrection faith. Ironically, avoiding suffering could be the very thing that prevents us from partnering deeply with the Risen Jesus. — Nik Ripken

When you train your employees to be risk averse, then you're preparing your whole company to be reward challenged. — Morgan Spurlock

When people believe that every move they make is going to affect their compensation, they tend to get risk averse. — Teresa Amabile

I'm still prone to periods of isolation, still more fearful of the world out there and more averse to pleasure and risk than I'd like to be; I still direct more energy toward controlling and minimizing appetites than toward indulging them. — Caroline Knapp

If you think in terms of major losses, because losses loom much larger than gains - that's a very well-established finding - you tend to be very risk-averse. When you think in terms of wealth, you tend to be much less risk-averse. — Daniel Kahneman

One of the challenges associated with a company becoming large is that companies become hierarchical. They become bureaucratic. They become slow. They become risk averse. — Kenneth C. Frazier