Small Bets.

Research shows that successful companies are more willing to take risks.  But they’re not reckless.  The best of the best — Amazon, for example — make a lot of small bets, to see which ones pan out.  Then they can put more resources behind the ones that work, and they haven’t put too much at risk.  Consumer goods company Proctor & Gamble took the same approach a few years ago when it gave the marketing heads for each product line some “play money” — marketing funds they could only use to try things they’ve never tried before.  A year later, P&G looked at the results to see which new ideas had moved the needle, then adapted them to other product lines.  How can you make some strategic small bets to get a big payoff?