Rethinking Risk - a critical enabler to a strengths based approach

In this risk averse world that we live in where we seek control and fear things going wrong, our approach to risk management can be a really critical enabler to a strengths based approach.  A strength based approach is about enabling people to be more independent, empowering people to be innovative and try new things, and playing to strengths so that we focus on what happens if things work rather than what happens if things go wrong.  If you are an employee in an organisation, asking you to take this approach without being clear on how we manage risk will leave you feeling vulnerable and psychologically unsafe.  Which in effect, means you’re less likely to make the shift.

So how do we collectively shift our thinking to become less fearful of things going wrong? How do we provide the sense of support and safety to enable people to be more willing to try things that are new and different?  How do we balance different types of risk - the emotional and social risks of not doing something as well as the physical risks that could happen?  And how do we work together to have adult-to-adult conversations so that we understand and appraise risk in a holistic way, learn together when things do go wrong and seek to learn not blame?  That’s a big can of worms to work through and helps us to think about why we can’t expect front line practitioners to manage risk differently unless we are willing to reflect that at a senior level within our systems and organisations.

I’ve been doing some work with line managers and front line staff working in Adults Social Care recently, helping them to think about risk differently.  In general, people get it, embrace it and want to work in this way but, and it’s a big but, they fear that if something does go wrong, whilst their manager may support them because they understand the steps they’ve gone through to determine the risks and how to manage them, their manager’s manager, or their manager’s manager’s manager won’t.  And until this changes, we won’t see the changes we are looking for in front line practice.

So what’s the answer?  Because telling people that their senior managers are on board and will support them doesn’t cut it - even when it’s the senior manager delivering the message themself.  People need the space to work this through in a really practical way so that they understand where the parameters are and are exposed to honest conversations that test real life scenarios.  One option could be to hold a workshop with a good cross section of people involved, diagonal slice style, to jointly explore risk tolerance levels together.  Prepare scenarios based on real life stories that test risk at a range of levels, bring a mix of people together who will think about risk from different perspectives and experiences and facilitate them to think about risk through the lens of the four elements of strengths based risk management - being specific about the situation - think risky situation, not vulnerable or risky person, thinking about risks holistically eg. social and emotional as well as physical risks, collaborate and give space for each person to explore and express their worries, working together to seek solutions and build from strengths thinking about what’s worked well before.

You may not come up with all the answers and you may not agree on everything but what you will do is start an honest dialogue and demonstrate a willingness to manage risk differently.  And that is a really important step in building the psychological safety that front line staff and managers need to put a strengths based approach into practice.