By Rick Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
In his bestselling book "Zero to
One: Notes On Startups Or How To Build
the Future", Paypal co-founder and tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel says he likes
to ask the interview question “What important truth do very few people agree
with you on?” It is an interesting
question and one that I have had an opportunity to use in several different
types of interviews.
I recently asked it at a risk
management workshop that I was conducting.
I asked it in the context of what are some of the accepted “truths” in
risk management that everyone believes but in fact may be wrong. The response was silence.
There are several possible
explanations for the silent response. A
very real one may be that no one dared to risk their professional status to
speak up and admit that they had a deviation from the accepted wisdom of the
crowd. (A worthy thought for a future
post.) Another reason however may be that
we are too lazy to think about alternatives to current practice. (Again, a potential future post.)
However
perhaps the reason was even simpler and more basic – no one had ever thought to
ask the question “what is it that everyone believes that might be wrong?”!
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