Builders With Risk Talent: Eagerly Embracing Challenges

On this episode of Builder Talent Tuesday Season 1, Jim Collison, Gallup's Director of Talent Sourcing, and Maika Leibbrandt, Senior Workplace Consultant, discuss the Risk talent with guest Tim Peterson.

People who are especially talented in the Risk talent embrace challenges with enthusiasm. They have a strong, charismatic and confident personality. They naturally focus on the rewards of success instead of potential failure. They emotionally connect with customers and exceed their expectations.

They are comfortable with ambiguity and have a highly optimistic perception of risk. When encountering a challenging decision, they take an analytical approach. They meticulously gather information and calculate the odds of success before taking action.

What Risk looks like in action is a bunch of charisma and confidence. People with this talent tend to have a persuasive personality that comes from the understanding that they're standing firmly on a foundation of calculation. Risk is enthusiasm in the face of a challenge. That optimistic perception of what others may see as risk can be incredibly engaging and magnetic in terms of a personality. People high in Risk tend to make decisions early and easily in complex situations. However, they take a rational approach to decision making. It isn't necessarily about going with your gut.

Individuals with high Risk do instinctively manage those high risk situations. They can take roller coaster situations and manage emotions, their own thoughts and they can decide how to move forward based on what they can learn and conceptualize to make it seem more analytical. Things may look riskier to others because they don't see the prep work that has been done.

One challenge around Risk can be the over inflated self-regard that can come from being highly charismatic and highly confident. You can almost try to over promise, and end up shouldering more responsibility than you can handle in the end. A way to invest in this is to know what you need in order to work your best. Pay attention to the capital you need in order to deliver your best product. Grow your network of outside networks to have people you can go to that can be great thought partners or subject matter experts.

Sometimes when something is shiny it can blind you. When you are drawn to risky things, you can be drawn to shiny things. Sometimes that kind of excitement about something new that no one else is doing can lead to a tunnel vision that can impede your process. Think about developing a routine to evaluate all of your opportunities. Think about fine tuning that ability to do the prep work and calculations. Have this in place so that every time you can go through the same process and thoughtfulness.

Tim O. Peterson's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Activator, Focus, Futuristic, Learner and Command.