Innovation and Risk

This week the Globe & Mail's ROB interviewed Tim Jackson, a Venture Capitalist from Kitchener-Waterloo. His message about calculated risk-taking in order to innovate and learning from our failures resonates.

I've known Tim, who is a partner in Tech Capital Partners for many years (all the way back to student politics days). In his interview he talks about learning from our failures and not being afraid to take calculated risks. The message he has for the private sector is one that applies amply to the public sector.

To link to the article in the Globe & Mail and the video.

We bemoan the minutest failures in government - they usually end up in BIG headlines in the newspaper - without realizing that, just as in life, not everything works out perfectly. This risk-averseness has resulted in the stifling of innovation and creativity and the explosion of so-called "accountability" agreements, which are nothing more than rules, rules and more rules. We forget that it is sometimes OK to fail as we can learn a lot from the failures. Now, if you keep repeating the same failure & you don't learn anything from them and you take unnecessary risks then you should be held to account.

Just as Tim espouses the need to "celebrate the spirit of entrepreneurship, and understand that failure is okay. You can't innovate without failure" in the private sector, I strongly believe that we need to celebrate innovation in the public sector as well.