Rick Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
In high school I was not the greatest student. In fact I got straight A+’s in having fun and playing pinball. One class I always enjoyed though was English – and more specifically studying Shakespeare. However I could never figure out why in heck we were studying the plays of some long ago dead white guy who wrote such that no one understood him.
As a risk manager I now know why. The reason is that Shakespeare wrote about human emotions and human’s reactions to their emotions.
All risk management comes down to the actions of people – either individually, or collectively as in a group (i.e. read markets). Actions are almost always based on emotion, even though we don’t like to admit it. Yes, natural disasters will occur as well, but they are relatively few and far between compared to the human created risk events. Even when natural events occur, the fall-out from human reactions can be many times more significant on outcomes than the direct result of nature.
Have your risk managers studied Shakespeare?
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