Rick Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
I subscribe to the Week. It is a news magazine that is basically a weekly news summary magazine. It is a fun read as all of the articles are super-short and are sourced from a wide variety of newspapers and magazines. One of the sections of this weekly is called “Only in America”. “Only in America” gives capsules of the stupidest news stories from around the States.
Catching up with some issues that were a few weeks old, a story on “Only in America” caught my eye about Barber-poles. It appears that a city in the U.S. has outlawed Barber-poles as they are considered to be a traffic hazard with their rotating red, blue and white spirals. This is truly something that could happen “Only in America”.
Of all the issues facing most American cities, Barber-poles has got to be quite far down the list. The mere fact that one city has decided to outlaw them really makes you wonder. How much time did they spend studying the issue of Barber-pole risk? How much of the city manager’s time was spent drafting the law? How large was the legal bill? How much city council time was spent debating the issue? How much time, energy and resources were spent by special-interest focus groups? (I am sure there is a special interest focus group on both sides of this issue.) I find the whole thing quite amazing.
However, I suspect that if I poked around your organization it would not take long to find a Barber-pole issue or two (or more) that has been risk managed to death in your workplace. Barber-pole issues are risk management issues that each company spends way too much time, energy and effort working on, when the risk benefit is simply not going to justify the whole exercise. I say let the Barber-poles spiral away – it’s the Starbucks Coffee signs I find distracting!
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