Friday, November 5, 2010

Risk Smile


by Rick Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.

I bet when you clicked on this link you thought there would be something about volatility smiles.  Probably not for a couple of weeks though (that is when I discuss that topic with my MBA Derivatives class).  Nope, this blog is about smiling.  That is the thing that you do when you are happy and cheerful.

In this blog I would like to ask you if your risk department, or your risk consultants make you smile.  Do they?  If you are a risk manager, or a risk consultant, do you make other people in the organization smile?  That is, while you are doing your job.

I think that risk managers should be making people smile.  Risk management is about getting things done in a prudent manner.  Risk management is about creating peace of mind.  Risk management is about creating opportunities.  Risk management is about increasing the probability and magnitude of good risk events happening (while decreasing the probability and severity of bad risk events happening).  All of these are good things.  Good things make people smile.  (….with apologies to Martha Stewart).

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Fighter Jets and Chaos


by Rick Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.

I was doing a bit of studying lately on Chaos, which is a field of science that has interested me since I was in high school.  As a field of study it is really quite neat, but not as practical as complexity.  The issue is that it is harder to get academic papers published in complexity and thus the scientific establishment pushes forward with chaos.

One of the things I learned earlier this week in my readings was that fighter jets are designed to be chaotic.  That is they are specifically designed to be unstable.  While this might be an undesirable trait in a commercial airliner, it is very attractive for fighter planes.  The instability – chaos – allows the plane to be much more maneuverable in crisis situations.  The instability actually serves a useful and valuable purpose.

This led me to consider the use of risk systems by most firms.  The goal in risk management – to my chagrin – has been to create ever more inflexible risk systems and frameworks.  The thinking goes that building a rock solid stable risk framework leads to a rock solid firm.  However I think a lesson can be taken from the design of fighter jets.  Perhaps a rock solid risk system is putting too much rigidity into the firm’s culture and thus when a crisis does occur the firm does not have the degrees of freedom necessary to take effective action.  The inertia of the firm’s risk system does not protect, but actually makes the firm more vulnerable. 

Perhaps it is time to add more chaos to get less chaos.  After all, isn’t business just like war?