Six Keys to a Winning Team Key #4 – Support Risk Taking

By Action Coach Dave Beam

A fourth key for producing a winning team is to support risk taking. For people to maximize their potential, they need to try new things, even make mistakes! The only people who don't make mistakes are those who never try anything new. Winning teams will always be willing to stretch their limits. As long as you have defined the rules of the game, the team should be encouraged to innovate within those defined boundaries.

To maximize the potential of every team member, the leader and organization must support risk taking. What does that mean? It means that fear of mistakes and failure must go. It means that we always solicit and welcome multiple solutions to challenges. It means that right brain, creative thinking is encouraged, and that new ideas and changes are welcomed and rewarded. It means that good is never good enough, and that continuous improvement, innovation, and experimentation are a fundamental part of the culture.

Do these concepts and ideas scare you? They don't need to. In fact, rejecting these concepts is truly more "risky" to the stability of the business or department. A refusal to try new things and make mistakes is a recipe for business and team failure. For example, the first typical response if you fail to support risk taking is that creative, innovative team members will leave the team. Those that stay will often lose spirit and become dull and barely functional. Human beings were made to create, innovate, explore, and experiment. If you refuse to support risk taking, you drain the adventure, fun and creativity out of the organization.

However, when your team starts to embrace risk, then a creative energy and synergy starts to kick in big time. If you are with me so far, you must be asking how to do this without causing major losses and catastrophe? How do I support risk taking and not gamble away all of my assets? The key is that the other keys must also be in place. A strong leader will add balance, discernment, and integrity to the process. Strong rules of the game will keep the risk within certain borders. In fact, strong rules of the game facilitate and enable risk taking. When the team knows the boundaries, they are free to take maximum risk and even make mistakes as long as they stay within the fence. Because risk taking and mistakes are supported within the rules, there is no fear of failure, and the team can accelerate learning by taking more chances, trying more things, and learning what does and does not work.