By Rick
Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
I am an admittedly big fan of
Seth Godin and his writings – particularly his blogs. However earlier this week, in a blog titled
“Rigor”, I believe he was inexcusably off-track. Seth Godin wrote “Rigor is a focus on
process.” With this I have no
problem. His next sentence however got
me to sit up and eject an enthusiastic “Bullshit!” The offending sentence and more specifically
the offending second clause was; “Paying attention to not just how you do
things, but why.” The “but why” struck
me as offensively wrong – particularly when it comes to thinking about rigor in
risk management.
In my experience, the vast
majority of people who have an allegiance to rigor have an inversely proportional
understanding of why they should be so rigorous. Rigor in risk management I find is often used
as a shield to hide the fact that no one can put forward a coherent explanation
for the why of the process.
In
this age of regulation commingled with risk management, we need to be more
rigorous about understanding – and constantly questioning – the why, than being
rigorous about the process. Furthermore
rigor needs to be rigorously matched to the appropriate why because the wrong
rigor for the wrong why is the worst form of risk management there is.
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