Everyone Risk Leader by Martin van Staveren
This book is only written in Dutch. But I think it is so good, that I want to give you the mail ideas.
Contents
The first two parts
In the first part of Everyone Risk Leader, the author briefly repeats the findings from previous books, namely from “Risicoleiderschap – doelgericht omgaan met onzekerheden” and “Risicogestuurd werken in de praktijk”.
In the second part, he elaborates on the approach to setting up risk leadership. I would like to dwell on one aspect of this for a moment, namely the three most important basic psychological needs of the human being in his environment, as the working environment is one.
- Security
- Autonomy
- Recognition
And I wonder if camaraderie has a link with it.
Security
Security can remove or avoid insecurities, but can make a person dependent on another person. Questions are: where do I belong, who gives me security and safety? So: who limits my risks?
So, in order to ensure risk leadership, you have to recognize when the need for security turns into dependence on the other. Dependency can lead to risks not being mentioned.
Autonomy
Autonomy means breaking free from dependency that requires security. Usually this happens when the parents break away from puberty, and this need is permanent. What you need to develop for that is basic trust. Being able to say no is absolutely necessary. To what extent do you want it? Where do you set your limits? What risks am I willing to take? ‘I do take care of my own safety, and if I don’t experience it that way, then it’s my own fault: I can make my own choices and I’m responsible for them.’
Acknowledgment
Acknowledgment: you have this need in a family, team, department, organization. You do this by distinguishing yourself. It goes hand in hand with competition with the other. It starts very young and is permanent for most people. It’s about finding a balance between conforming and not standing out with a lack of recognition versus non-conforming and removal from the group with no more recognition. So: from whom do I want recognition and what freedom am I willing to give up for that? What do I have to sacrifice in terms of safety and security? It’s about interdependence. This insight, in a VUCA world where everything is connected, determines your attitude towards risk and risk leadership. After all, due to complexity, risk management is often only possible to a limited extent. So sometimes you have to accept or take risks. Recognition is often no longer about the risk consequences for you as an individual, but for the other, the team, the organization, society as the big picture, it becomes decisive.
These basic needs do not only play and clash in the individual, but also where people work together and live together: in organizations and in society.
Five pitfalls of the brain
Five pitfalls of the brain and its emotions are:
- Short-term nice, even if it’s long-term pain.
- Behavior that leads to short-term pleasure.
- Procrastination, because doing it now seems more difficult than (having to) do it later.
- Legitimizing morality: justifying your behavior from the first three pitfalls. You’re fooling yourself.
- Unconscious behaviour: the force of habit, for example. You don’t think about it: about what you’re doing.
This goes hand in hand with system 1 thinking (good for simple issues) versus system 2 thinking (better for wild issues).
Such things lead to interpersonal anxiety:
Anxiety is fueled at work by interactions with others. That’s interpersonal anxiety. Fear of a breach of our physical or social safety. As a result, we may become insecure, which could lead us to make mistakes. And lose our jobs.
Or afraid of being curtailed in our autonomy and the associated curtailment of acquired rights.
Or afraid of losing recognition as a professional. Not to be taken seriously with our expertise and experience.
Thus, the presence of colleagues puts the three basic needs to the test.
Interpersonal safety
As a medicine for interpersonal anxiety, there is interpersonal safety.
You are hardly afraid to say something that you think needs to be said. In any situation and against anyone. And that no one is hindered by fear of doing the same. In this way, deviating signals, uncertainty and risks and opportunities are identified and interpreted in a timely manner, even if this is not immediately pleasant for those involved. Camaraderie is a facilitator of this, and a catalyst for it.
Clear goals and ownership are also important. But always in conjunction with psychological safety. Camaraderie then makes connections between people who help transcend personal goals.
Three tasks
Psychological safety is necessary to be able to talk about risks. It is therefore a task for the hierarchy to know the actual situation of psychological safety and to continue to work on it.
Task 1 for fear-free organization: clarifying the goals and the associated expectations about dealing with uncertainties, risks and opportunities.
To develop interpersonal safety in the organization through clarification, you can use the following skills:
1 Making goals leading
2 Dealing with conflicting goals
3 Making value dominant.
Task 2 for Anxiety-Free Organizing: Invite
This means: actively listening in all daily situations, asking questions, naming and testing what you hear between the lines, interpreting body language and asking if what you think you see is correct.
Showing the power of vulnerability + inviting newcomers to join the company + continuing to invite.
To do this, you can use the following skills:
8 Dealing with risks from a place of trust
9 Invite
20 Questions
4 Allowing Diversity
5 Harnessing Diversity
10 Allowing Uncertainty
Task 3 for Fear-Free Organizing: Answering
This is about doing something with the responses to the invitation to speak freely. Go answer those comments.
- If you are involved in a mistake yourself, this is difficult.
- If someone else can point out a mistake, that is also difficult.
- If someone has to leave due to poor performance, this is also difficult (but ‘one clean shot protects the herd’)
- This comes down to purpose.
- At the end of the day, it’s better for everyone to be honest in the long run.
To do this, you can use the following skills:
6 Organizing ownership (this starts with yourself)
11 Making Choices
15 Handling Dynamics
16 Seeing Through Interactions
18 Spotting deviations early
19 Mitigating the impact of risks
All this means that Camaraderie alone is not the solution to sound risk leadership. But it’s a strong catalyst for it.
Title: Iedereen Risicoleider – waarde realiseren én behouden in een onzekere wereld, Author: Martin van Staveren, Publisher: Boom, ISBN: 9789461270009