by Rick Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
From a previous blog, readers know that I am a fan of Fast Company. I was recently reading an article on management lessons for Google in the magazine and one of their “lessons” slapped me in the face. The lesson was “When in creative mode, don’t start with the data!”
Risk management – thanks to propeller heads like myself – has become fixated with data. As a profession we always start with the data. Perhaps that is why the field has not produced more creative solutions. Perhaps if we start with creativity, thought, ideas, and maybe even pure wackiness, and then let the data decide only after we have developed a new idea the solutions will be better and more effective.
In our consulting we almost always bring a “Wow!” factor to our client’s situations. Remarkably this is easy to do. They always start with the data, while we always try to start with ideas. Funny how that works – isn’t it?
Starting without the data does not mean you avoid it or even worse ignore it. Data (in the proper hands) does not lie and thus is necessary. What data does do is crowd out ideas and creativity. In other words data becomes the cart leading the horse. It’s time for risk management to get the horses (creativity and thinking) back in front of the cart (data).
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