Risk-taking for the future

In the latest of our essays on how best to prepare young people for the future, Donna Miller, Human Resources Director, Europe, at Enterprise Rent-A-Car asserts that the developing the skill of risk-taking in young people is crucial.

She says: “Young people need to understand that risk underpins many facets of life, including workplace skills, creativity, enterprise, decision-making and problem-solving.”

An informed attitude to risk-taking is also fundamental for innovation as it requires experimentation, endeavour, the ability to overcome fear of failure and the competency to weigh up different options and, when necessary, to invent one’s own opportunities. 

NESTA’s Future Innovators programme is currently working with a range of partners on new ways of developing an awareness of risk-taking in young people or those who support them. Our pilots include a project to examine how this skill can be embedded into the curriculum for Design and Technology, a scheme to encourage adults working with young people to manage their own reactions to risk and an online psychometric tool to encourage young people to think about the risks they take and face in daily life.

We’re interested in learning about other projects that aim to develop risk-taking in young people.

Comments

[James Todhunter]

Putting the risk element of innovation into context is important. However, it is very important that one not be seduced by the argument that innovation means risk. Innovation is really a tool to mitigate risk.

In today's rapidly evolving world, complacently sitting on one's laurels is the surest path to irrelevancy. Innovation is the way to avoid this fate and build for the future.

Understanding this and ensuring that innovation efforts are strongly aligned with strategic goals and organizational culture will go a long way to ensuring that the success of innovation is not just a happy accident. At P&G, this type of focus has led to a product launch success rate three times the industry average.

[Martin Gibbons]

Risk taking is a personality issue, in that it comes more naturally to some than others. Risk taking on an ongoing basis for some personality types is likely to induce work related stress and would therefore need to be handled very carefully. I applaud a work environment that encourages risk taking but it's not for everyone.