by Rick Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
If one asks for success and prepares for failure, he will get the situation he has prepared for.
Florence Shiner
As risk managers, and as risk management departments how do we ask for success? That might sound like a really stupid question, but when I ask risk managers what success is I either get a dumbfounded look, or the answer along the lines of “absence of failure”.
What is success for a risk manager? How many risk departments can answer this in a strong way that shows vision, passion, and a value added component. I believe that the risk department should add to the value of the organization. I believe that the risk department should not be the “Department of No!”, but instead be an integral part of allowing the strategic vision and more importantly the strategic opportunities to come to fruition.
However risk is often framed incorrectly. Regrettably the risk objective is often framed in the negative (albeit a perverse form of a double negative, as in “we don’t want this bad thing to happen”). Framing in the negative often means that you get the negative – as the above quote implies. It is way past due that risk managers start to think in terms of the positive possibilities, rather than in terms of the negative possibilities. It is time that risk managers defined success more positively and prepared for success more positively.
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