by Rick Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc
Late last week I drove my teenage daughter Meaghan to the dealer so she could pick up her car after having it serviced. Starting off on the 20 minute drive I realized that either I could listen to her favorite pop music radio station (instead of my favorite classical or hard rock stations) or start a conversation. I chose to start a conversation – and those of you with teenagers are now rolling your eyes and calling me a fool.
As most conversations with teenagers go this started off in a rather predictable fashion; “How was your day?” “Boring.” “What did you do?” “Nothing.” … I think you get the pattern of the conversation; question, followed by a mono-word answer that signals the value that teenagers place on “conversing” with their parents. As it is the middle of summer, and all her friends were working while she had the day off, I suspect that my daughter did indeed have a relatively uneventful day. However we still had 18 minutes to go until we would be at the car dealer.
I started to ask questions that could not be answered by mono-word answers. “What was the funniest thing you did today?” “What was the single most fantastic moment of the day?” etc. Of course these questions (positive in focus) just gained me a weird look and an attempt to put a CD into the player. However I persisted and a funny thing happened. The more I focused on the positive aspects of the day (“well you are breathing, correct? Isn’t that a good thing?”), the more my daughter opened up. By the time we got to the dealership I could not shut her up. She was going on about this great thing, and that great thing.
In risk we often focus on facts – particularly the facts of the downside. How interesting is that? How engaging is that? Perhaps if we focused more on the upside of things, and focus on them in a qualitative manner, then the risk conversation as well would become richer and much more engaging.
P.S. On the drive back home by myself, I listened to a Headstones CD.
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