Freedom Creates Risk

There is a sign in the Care home that my mother resided in that read ‘Everyone has the right of freedom and with freedom comes risk’.

To attempt to give the residents a good life, many with dementia, it was understood that trying to protect them from every risk would restrict their remaining opportunity for dignity and freedom to be human. (To cut out the risk of falling – don’t let them wonder in the garden and so on)

When we give people real freedom at work, freedom to be themselves,  to experiment, to collaborate, to speak out –  there is a risk of the ‘what if‘.

• What if they make a mistake?
• What if they speak out of turn?
• What if they fail?
• What if they fall?
• What if they go to far?
• What if they find a better way (and make me look not so good)?

The answer to those questions, if you seek an initiative centric culture, is ‘So what if they do?‘  Because if they do fall, fail, speak out of turn or cross a line they find themselves in the place where learning and lifelong lessons reside.

What if they don’t feel or are not  given the freedom to take those risks?

You are not getting all they can be – what a waste.

 

Image courtesy of GotCredit