Surface Ripples

It’s What We Can’t Imagine That Matters

I came across one of the most telling points about risk management: it’s the risks we can’t imagine that matter most.

Humans aren’ t good at managing risk because it’s all about imagination. We’re great at responding to things or crises that have just happened as we take the view that what has just happened is most likely to happen again.  Where we fall down is imagining a crisis before it happens and taking action to prevent it.

As someone who’s often charged with assessing “risk”, it made me sit up and think.  Am I guilty of the same weakness as others?  Does it help, when identifying and assessing risk, to do it as a team project where, with luck, one team member may imagine the exact risk that will occur? 

There’s an anecdote about the special forces operation that captured Osama bin Laden. When the operators were planning and were asked what the worst thing that could happen might be, one of them replied “Suppose one of the helicopters crashes?”  Some told him not to put a “jinx” on the mission. However, that was exactly what happened!  

We don’t know if the other operators paid attention to what he said. Luckily, they’d planned for it and  we know that everybody got out.

Our problem is, we can’t imagine things that are outside our experience or horizons of imagination.  In day-to-day life, I come across occasions when people don’t seem to “get” certain situations.  This isn’t their fault, it’s just that they simply have no frame of reference for that occurrence whereas others do.

In the end, the question we need to ask ourselves is not, “what’s the worst that could happen?” so much as, "What’s the worst that could happen that we're unable to imagine at this point?”

At the moment, the only conclusion I can draw is that we have to deal with what happens that we haven’t been able to imagine when it occurs (the eruption of the COVID pandemic is a prime example).

Another solution may be to have “risk brainstorming” sessions that involve panels of people chosen from different functions, areas and levels of experience of the world.  Adopting an “I can do it all attitude” maybe our surest route to the very disaster that we want to avoid.

I deliver change in markets ranging from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. 

Labels: Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Risk, Strategy, Teamwork

posted by William Martin @ 09:04