I've been reading 'Start With Why' by Simon Sinek and while I think the entire book is fabulous, one thing that stood out last night was the idea that without Trust people are unwilling to take risks. The idea is that even way back, hunters and gatherers had to trust their community to watch over their loved ones while they would go out in search of food.
They knew that if it rained someone would help get their family to shelter, they knew if it got cold someone would light a fire to warm the group, overall the community lived by rules and because of that they felt comfortable taking the risk to hunt because they knew that their group would do XYZ. If they didn't trust the people around them they wouldn't have been willing to leave their families 'in the cave' with a bunch of crazies. It is the trust they had in their community that made them comfortable with taking the risk to leave and hunt.
The same is true in the workplace. Employees need to be able trust their manager, co-workers, and company before they are willing to take risks, for example like presenting innovative ideas. If there is no framework or established pattern that employees can easily recognize then presenting something new is now a huge risk because you would have no idea what the repercussions would be. Without that trust the majority of their time will be focused on trying to figure out how to do work without getting into trouble or rocking the boat.
However, if the community in which they work plays by a set of known rules, the employee knows what to expect and can craft their creativity into the culture in which they work. This doesn't eliminate risk but it greatly reduces it from the employees point of view because they can more closely predict the response from management or others on their idea and thus can feel more comfortable thinking outside the box.
Management needs to ensure that they are consistent in what they do. That consistency allows employees to understand the 'set of rules' that are used on their team and, hopefully, begins to build trust within the team. Once trust exists employees become more creative and more willing to take risks (hopefully for the good of the team and company). But without that trust, the majority of employees avoid any risk by doing just enough to stay out of trouble.
