Change is hard, and the transition from ‘peacetime’ to crisis is one of the hardest. Facing the spread of COVID-19, that’s where many of us find ourselves today: struggling to adjust to the reality of what we are facing. That might be personally, within your family, or at an organizational level. However, I can’t think of anywhere that’s going to escape this contagion so, no matter the level, we all have to transition and the faster, the better. ...
By now, you will probably have picked up that I enjoy a good old risk assessment. However, there are times when you don’t need a risk assessment to figure out what to prioritize. When something’s staring you in the face, it’s time to take action. So when a real crisis hits, the time for the risk assessment is over. So is the time to ‘wait and see.’ So is the time for asking, ‘why me?’ ...
In David McKee’s book for children ‘Not Now Bernard’, a young boy tries to warn his parents about a monster in the yard, but they’re too busy to pay attention. All they say is ‘not now Bernard’ and ignore him. In the end, the monster eats Bernard and moves into the house, but his parents are still too busy to notice. Look Out, Bernard! Illustration by David McKee I don’t think the author meant this to be a homily about risk management, but this will be a familiar refrain if you’re a risk manager. The slot for the update on the risk register gets pushed to one side. Or your data is dismissed out of hand because someone doesn’t like what they’re hearing. Or you simply get shouted down. ...
You need to fix a fatal assumption Most organizations and groups have contingency plans in place for when things go wrong. So do many families and individuals. They’ve spent the time thinking about what to do if someone gets sick, a product launch fails, a vehicle crashes, or there’s a fire. The problem is that most of these plans will fail because they’re based on a completely false and unrealistic assumption. ...
Effective execution is a matter of dealing with scarcity: a scarcity of time, a scarcity of resources, and scarcity of information (although too much information can also cause problems). Tools like a risk assessment help manage this scarcity by prioritizing things to allow you to better allocate resources on what’s most important. But there’s a hidden flaw in this process which often means that resources are misallocated, and the most important things are overlooked. ...
“Hi, I’m Andrew, and I have a weakness for data.” There, I said it. I love spreadsheets. I love national statistics. I love primary sources. I could probably have completed my Master’s dissertation without an extension if I had just accepted that cited quotes were valid instead of looking for all the original sources*. And I don’t need to read the last three years of a company’s annual reports before I have a 20-minute call with them. ...
A while back, I felt that pretty much everything was out of sync and I was highly disorganized. There was a growing list of undone things whether that was around the house, at work, with my family, or at the places where I volunteer. It was definitely time for a reorganization. A few weeks later, things were back in order (I even had time to write again), and a big part of my reorganization was refocussing on the systems I use for productivity. ...
Often, the end of the risk assessment feels like the end of the process and things start to ease off. Unfortunately, this is when the real work begins because, now that you have identified and prioritized your risks, you need to do something about them. There are several options when it comes to dealing with a risk but it’s risk treatments I want to focus on here. These often go askew when mitigation measures aren’t designed carefully. This wastes resources and the risks aren’t reduced. ...
Back in his 1962 State Of The Union Address, JFK noted that “the best time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” He was making the point that the US needed to make harder economic decisions while the economy was strong rather than trying to implement cuts and structural changes during a downturn. However, this idea extends well beyond economics and is something we should apply whenever there is a difficult decision to make. There will be times where something truly unexpected crops up and we don’t have much chance to plan beforehand but, in most situations, we can plan ahead. The critical thing is that hard decisions are much easier to tackle when you aren’t already in the middle of a stressful situation. ...
Right or left? The red pill or the blue pill? Speak up or stay quiet? Should I stay or should I go? A decision point is a moment when a significant choice presents itself and the decision made will result in a significant change of course that cannot be undone easily. Moreover, that same choice or option is unlikely to reemerge in the future. The essential elements are that the decision is significant, non-repeatable, and non-reversible. ...