Fine line between adventure and recklessness is made of success

A WEEK ago we watched as the chaos-inducing snow melted into floods and our workforce slowly returned to normality.

The day the Red weather warning was ending, I risked the snowy roads to drive my son to London for an interview, with flights and rail travel all cancelled. We loaded up with duvets, food and water and eight hours later arrived in London.

Two days later we were safely back in Edinburgh, praised as adventurers. With a wry smile, I reflected it is a fine line between adventure and recklessness, that line being success.

When we look at the UK Industrial Strategy or The Scottish Government’s Economic Strategy, entrepreneurship is at the heart of our economic success. Yes, we need to improve productivity; yes, we need to embrace and adopt innovation; we need to invest in technology and we need to invest in the skills of our young people. But entrepreneurship and the scalability of these enterprising new businesses will be the defining element that makes us future-proof, international, inclusive and clean.

Taking risks and putting everything on the line, working long hours and receiving few short-term rewards is the life of our entrepreneurs and if they are lucky they will succeed. What makes them take this risk? They are our everyday adventurers and pioneers. So often facing failure but pushing on. Facing issues they’ve never faced before and trying their best to make the right decisions.

Failure is not celebrated in Scotland, we don’t encourage risk-taking. We have the big ideas but how do we deliver results without risk?

The UK Industrial Strategy has thrown down 4 Grand Challenges – Shaping the future of mobility; Innovation for the needs of an aging society; “Artificial Intelligence and a Data-driven Innovation” economy and Clean growth. No doubt the universities are on it, big brains with big ideas pitching for a piece of the

£2.4 billion funding on offer.

But unless we are bold where will these big ideas take us?

Do we have the entrepreneurs that will make these ideas world leading businesses that remain located in Scotland long-term?

DDI and technology will transform the way we do business, how we live and work but we need to adapt, adopt, invest and take a leap of faith it will all come good. Working together and sharing experiences, ideas, know-how – being truly collaborative can make the difference between success and failure.

Creating an ecosystem made up from education, business, innovators, public sector, third sector and entrepreneurs can mitigate the risk, help make wise, informed decisions and turn reckless decisions into a great adventure. Why should we get involved? What’s in it for us? A prosperous, inclusive and clean Scotland.

Liz Mcareavey is chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce.