Does Risk Management prevent creativity?

Many generalist managers consider risk management to be too structured and too negative, focussing on barriers rather than opportunities and stifling creative ideas and concepts. 

Does risk management prevent creativity?

No - Risk Management provides a framework for focusing and guiding creative thinking. 


How is this achieved?

1.	Risk management establishes a method for identifying the key elements of success and/or failure as they relate to the achievement of a defined objective.  What those elements are is up to the creativity of the people involved in the identification. 

2.	With the key elements of success and/or failure identified, the risk management process uses a cause/consequence analysis to explore the drivers of success or failure and to a lesser extent, the consequences.  

3.	Once the drivers of success or failure are established, the creative mind can then explore possible strategies and actions to enable or control those drivers. 


What is the key to success?

The key to the success of a risk assessment is the articulation of objective. Clarity of purpose is critical to enabling a risk assessment. Once this is established, risk management provides a methodology to analyse the elements of success and/or failure and a process for enabling success and controlling potential failures.  


Where does creativity come into it?

The creative mind identifies a range of possibilities when it comes to considering what will cause an objective to succeed as well as what may cause it to fail. 

The creative mind will also identify a range of actions or strategies that will enable the elements of success as well as control the elements of failure. 


Where does business acumen fit?

Which enabling or controlling actions are selected for use will be based on a range of criteria, including cost, opportunity, time, perceive effectiveness, legal, etc.  This is usually not the realm of the creative mind, rather the management mind. 


How far can this concept be taken?

In many ways, risk management also establishes objectives to be achieved, simply by the virtue that such an objective may be an enabling or controlling action or strategy for a “higher” level risk. 

In this way risk management can be used to inform the construct or structure of an organisation.  If this rationale is accepted, then risk management can be considered an enabler of the creative organisation.