on Risk & Safety

Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

“You’ll be damned if you do and damned if you don’t”.  This was the message from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for those situations when you believe in your heart that you are doing the right thing even if, or when others believe it to be wrong.  This is what leaders do, they lead based upon what they believe to be right and will reap the consequences, whatever the outcome.  Leadership is about doing; it’s about making things happen through the people who follow and enabling those people to make it happen.  It’s also about being responsible for your actions and those of the others who have acted on your behalf.

Leadership has always been around in some form or another; there is always a leader of any pack or tribe.  Successful leaders and their idiosyncratic styles are not only analysed and biographed but also emulated and even imitated.  Practically speaking though it boils down to the ability of some to influence, motivate and direct teams of individuals to undertake some task or other.  The traits of leadership in turn are a function of a leader’s character and the situations in which they find themselves, the people around them, and the task at hand.

Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Structures are all around us, even chaos has structure albeit fractal.  We humans too involved in structures; not only do we construct physical structures, but we form organisational structures and create civilizations using the social, economic and cultural structures that rule our lives.

Some of these structures collapse due to human error, natural forces outside of our control, and man’s destructive and violent nature.  The reasons for such collapses may not be understood but, being inquisitive we strive to find out.  But these endeavours are not only earthbound as we also seek to work out the structure of the universe and its workings.  An early example of such work is from the astronomer Kepler who developed his model of our solar system.  Although geometrically fascinating it’s a far cry from our modern-day perceptions

Guest Post by Daniel Burrus (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Question for all who read this: to succeed at any business venture, you merely need to have huge resources, dedicated personnel, and a quality product or service, right? From there, it’s just collecting money and living a good life.

This presumption is more common than you realize, and could not be more wrong and misguided. In a world where exponential change and digital disruptions abound, you simply cannot rest on your laurels and merely rely on what you’ve already built. Because of the rapidly accelerating rate of change, your business is only ever as strong as its next innovation.

Guest Post by John Mason (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

A classic question for all CEOs and floor sweepers alike.  What the heck do we do and what do we want to do?  In big business there is visioning, missioning, goal setting, target measuring, market analysis, focus groups, policy and much much more, more and more.  In small business, we offer far more than we would like to do, but in order to make ends meet, we take on more and more until we finally burn out or are lucky enough to realise a cash flow that will enable us to niche or focus on what we do and what we want to do.

Guest Post by Annette Davison and Ian Wright Ph.D. (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Risk is the impact of uncertainty on achieving your objectives – the impact can be either positive or negative outcomes (ISO 31000). Governments have multiple objectives they have to meet – health and wellbeing, economic, environmental, ethical and so on. Each of these objectives essentially becomes a risk endpoint. The fundamental tenets of risk assessment are understanding the system (the context), understanding and assessing the risk (against your identified objectives), managing the risk and then monitoring whether the risk is actually controlled, and whether a further risk treatment needs to be applied.[1]

Guest Post by Patrick Ow (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

In Part 1, we looked at the two relevant dimensions for decision-making under certainty, risk, and uncertainty that form the certainty-uncertainty spectrum are:

1. Degree of certainty – It ranges from close to certainty to far from certainty.
2. Level of predictability and control – It moves from close to predictability and control to far from predictability and control.

Guest Post by Patrick Ow (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the two relevant dimensions for decision-making under certainty, risk, and uncertainty that form the certainty-uncertainty spectrum are:

1. Degree of certainty – It ranges from close to certainty to far from certainty.
2. Level of predictability and control – It moves from close to predictability and control to far from predictability and control.

Based on these two dimensions, in this Part2, we will be looking at the three conditions along the certainty-uncertainty spectrum that you will face when making decisions under certainty, risk, and uncertainty.