Fourth, we need a different culture: pacier, less paper-driven, less imprisoned by process; more entrepreneurial and innovative, less risk-averse.

Invariably, they would tell me how frustrated they were working for big, slow-moving corporations with frightened, risk-averse cultures.

There are many reasons for this, including the rise of evidence-based medicine and the risk-averse culture in which we live.

Having stepped straight from my highly regulated, risk-averse Western culture, I was feeling uniquely alive to be sharing a habitat with huge, intriguing animals that could as easily kill me as scratch themselves.

These agreements weren't only expensive; I suspect that they helped to foster a risk-averse culture that made it harder for G.M. to cope with change.

"A criminal investigation is something that breeds a risk-averse culture at C.I.A.," said a Bush administration official familiar with the case.

In October 2006, the local council refused to give permission for the statues to stay, prompting Gormley to criticise what he called Britain's "risk-averse culture."

The National Commission on Terrorism, a blue-ribbon panel convened by Congress, reported in June 2000 that United States intelligence agencies had developed a desk-bound, "risk-averse culture."

But difficult business conditions, in addition to Procter's size and conservative, risk-averse culture, undermined his strategy.

The military has been bemoaning its risk-averse culture for a decade but has done nothing to correct it.