Olympic Visualization

by Rick Nason, PhD, CFA

Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.

www.RSDsolutions.com

info@RSDsolutions.com

 

A key aspect of sports psychology is visualization.  Before competing, many athletes have been trained to visualize themselves performing the event in the best possible manner.  This has proven to be a very powerful technique for producing improved performance.  If you see a TV close-up of an athlete in the moments before an event, you will often see them with their eyes closed.  This is them going through their visualization technique and preparation.

 

Let’s take a moment and step away from athletics.  Suppose there was a form of visualization that worked for business management that proved to be as powerful as visualization for sports.  For your risk management function, what would you visualize?  In other words, what would be the perfection of risk management implementation that you would run through in your mind?  Not so easy to come up with an image is it?  However if you cannot visualize it in your mind, how can you mange towards it?

Olympic Failure

by Rick Nason, PhD, CFA

Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.

www.RSDsolutions.com

info@RSDsolutions.com

 

Gold medal Olympians for the most part go on to fame and fortune.  We remember their names and they are paraded before us all as heroes, and justifiably so.  Silver medalists less so, and bronze medalists even less.  Fourth place finishers barely get mentioned and those who finish fifth or below are quickly forgotten after the pre-Olympic hype is over.  However the difference between first and last can literally be fractions of a second, or a minute amount of performance.  The Olympics are a winner take all series of events.  Perfection is needed for success, and anything less than perfection is relegated to the hazy memory pile and quickly forgotten.  Finishing off the podium is often considered to be Olympic failure.

 

We often treat risk management as a winner take all event.  The thinking is frequently that risk management needs to be perfect in order to be successful.  The tragedy of this is that it is not possible to be perfect in risk management.  It is not possible to be even close to perfect in risk management.  Striving for perfection only leads to missed expectations and frustration.  However being good, and trying to always be better, will lead to a strong competitive advantage, and the equivalent of a gold medal performance. 

 

Not being on the risk management podium is not failure.  However just striving to be an Olympic quality competitor in risk management does almost automatically put you on the podium.  It is concentrating on being perfect, or not trying at all that makes you a risk management failure of Olympic proportions.

Olympic Coaches

 by Rick Nason, PhD, CFA

Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.

www.RSDsolutions.com

info@RSDsolutions.com

 

 

While watching the Olympics, have you ever looked at the physiques of the coaches?  Many of them are old, pot-bellied and out of shape.  No one doubts their expertise, but not for a minute does someone thing that they would be able to perform the feats of the competitors.

 

I point this out to highlight the fact that knowing, and being able to do are often two very different things.  Knowing a lot about risk management is not the same as doing risk management.  Banker’s Trust knew how to do risk management, but they could not, would not, or did not do risk management.

 

Olympic coaches are great assets.  Not so great doers.

Welcome to the ECB & Risk

by Don Alexander, MBA

Associate, RSD Solutions Inc.

www.RSDsolutions.com

info@RSDsolutions.com 

 

The current ECB President, Mario Draghi has said in his latest statements that the ECB is now determined to act as lender in last resort to governments by offering the services of the ECB’s unbounded purse.  In effect, the ECB head is willing to backstop public debts to restore the effectiveness of monetary policy as the markets continue to test its’ resolve.  This could indeed bring the euro zone close to the end of the crisis.  This is part of a recent discussion by Charles Wyplosz in Welcome to the ECB (VOXEU, 30^th July).

 

By stating that preservation of the euro is an ECB obligation, he indicated that he will have no choice but “to do whatever it takes”.  This means optimism may be justified – if only because it suggests that the Eurozone has a great central banker who is both a serious economist and an astute politician.  Draghi made an implicit commitment to act as lender of last resort to Eurozone governments. 

Draghi has political cover: every single summit since 2010 has repeated – and this quite formally and explicitly – that Eurozone leaders are ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro.  The time to deliver is coming.  This will be a gigantic political challenge for Merkel, but in many cases she has already changed her position in front of pressing danger to the euro zone.

 

On 11 December 2011, Mr. Draghi said:  “What I believe our economic and monetary union needs is a new fiscal compact – a fundamental restatement of the fiscal rules together with the mutual fiscal commitments that euro area governments have made.” A fiscal compact was initiated and the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the EMU, is now under ratification. The ECB delivered starting its massive liquidity support for Eurozone banks – the LTRO (Long Term Refinancing Operation).

 

Secondly, On 31 May 2012, Mr. Draghi famously called for a banking union, pointedly noting:  "We can have a big pot of money, but if people can't touch it, it's like we don't have it."  Although the term is vague and therefore open to much watering down, the prospect of a single European bank supervisor, a long-rejected yet indispensable element of a monetary union, is now on track.

 

The latest statement signals that the ECB is now determined to act as lender in last resort to governments.  The Draghi method is becoming clear: offer the services of the ECB’s unbounded purse, but require what it takes to alleviate the moral hazard that it entails.  Put differently, Draghi is willing to backstop public debts to restore the effectiveness of monetary policy. This would indeed bring us close to the end of the crisis.  The question is can he deliver.

 

Optimism may become justified now, if indeed the ECB is in the hands of serious economists and astute politicians.  But then, Wyplosz worries that there always is a risk of reading too much in a central banker’s unavoidably cryptic statements.

 

The lesson for risk management is not just the discussion, but what is actually delivered.

For more on this follow the link: http://www.voxeu.org/article/welcome-to-the-ecb