A lot of people tell me that innovation goes nowhere at their organization because their management is too risk averse. That may feel true, but it’s imprecise. All managers should be risk averse. The most innovative companies are also risk averse. They don’t take risks they don’t have to, and they find ways to minimize or mitigate the risks, including those from innovation. Managers who refuse to do any innovation are uncertainty averse, which is not the same thing as being risk averse. Innovation only happens in conditions of extreme uncertainty, because by definition you are creating and validating something that hasn’t…
Author: Raq Winchester
Raq Winchester
Raq Winchester has worked for and with the U.S. intelligence community for twenty years, currently serving as a strategic innovation expert and futurist. She has served in multiple overseas posts in positions ranging from counterterrorism to support. She has founded several successful startups in the IC to help develop and deploy new capabilities with speed and urgency. She writes for the Center for the Study of Intelligence and has the second most popular blog on the intelligence community’s internal network. Outside of intelligence work, she writes games for cybersecurity training, where the difference between risk and uncertainty is crucial.