Encourage Risk-Taking
Encouraging risk-taking involves creating an environment where team members feel safe to experiment, innovate, and take calculated risks without fear of negative repercussions for failure.
Goal
The goal is to foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement where the pursuit of new ideas, approaches, and solutions is encouraged and valued, even when it involves uncertainty and the potential for failure.
Context
90% of features fail to deliver the expected value because we lock in our ideas early and our first ideas are rarely the best ones. By embracing a culture of small bets, experimentation, and learning, we can increase our chances of success and create a more resilient and adaptable organisation. This approach encourages a shift from the mindset of having to get it right first time to a culture of continuous improvement and innovation where we are happy to kill bad ideas early and learn from them.
Inputs
| Artifact | Description |
|---|---|
| Core Values | The underlying values and beliefs that define the organisation's culture and guide decision-making. |
| Leadership Principles | A set of principles that leaders commit to embodying and promoting within the organisation. |
Outputs
| Artifact | Description | Benefits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Process Vision | A list of assumptions that have been validated. |
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| Process Principles | A list of assumptions that have been invalidated. |
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| Linking Targets to Performance Evaluation: When targets are directly linked to performance evaluation, team members may be incentivised to play it safe and avoid taking risks. | Penalising Failure: Discouraging risk-taking by focusing on penalties for failure rather than opportunities for learning and growth. | Risk-Aversion: Creating an environment where safety and predictability are overly valued, stifling innovation and creativity. | Glorifying Failure: The goal is to learn from failures, not to celebrate them as the end goal. |