It’s hard to convince business owners and decision-makers, especially successful ones, to implement a plan to manage their risk. And it’s rare for new companies to implement risk management plans, even though it’s relatively easy to integrate risk management practices into a company whose organizational elements are still being formed.

The biggest obstacle to more companies adopting risk management is resistance. Resistance affects any change opportunity for a company, regardless of the operation or department involved. How many times have companies lost market share or been bypassed in technology development because of their decision-makers’ resistance to change? Never has the old adage been truer than in today’s business world: the only constant in life is change.

The seed of resistance comes from sustained success owing to consistent business practices. Why change if it’s going so well? If a company has been working without any major mishaps for a while, managers will be proud of what they have been doing to prevent significant incidents or disasters. But ask yourself this question: How has the business been dealing with issues as they come up? Are they handled completely, or just well enough to get by?

Be sure you and your team feel that there is a need to make changes. Dive deeper into the organization to learn how it really works. Perhaps you will find a different picture of the processes and networks than you surmised. Perhaps not. Either way, it is certain that the business can benefit from better risk management capabilities, or techniques for managing risk. Start with a willingness to improve those capabilities.