By Rick Nason,
PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
There is a
lot to mock about The Brady Show, but if you were raised in the seventies you probably
viewed most of the episodes more than once.
(If you have never seen the show, then you really didn’t miss much
except a lot of homey corniness, bad and constantly changing hairstyles and an
earworm of an opening jingle.)
For those of
you who have seen the show, you probably remember the episode where Jan was
jealous of her sister and screamed out “Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!” to highlight
the fact that everything in the Brady household seemed to revolve around her
older sister Marsha.[1]
If you are a
risk manager of a certain level of experience and competence you are likely to
exclaim in a similar fashion and with a similar level of envy and exasperation
“Data! Data! Data!”.
Jan’s
parents, like all good parents, loved each of their children through thick and
thin. However, in any complex situation
there are times when things are “thick” and times when things are “thin”. Just as one child is not superior to another
child, one form of risk management is not exclusively nor inherently better
than another.
Risk management by data has its place, but it
should not be to the exclusion of all other methods of assessing and responding
to risk. Just as a parent does not want
to be seen as catering to the needs of one child to the exclusion of the other
children, risk management should not focus exclusively on risk control by data
metrics. There is a case to be made that
some of the most important aspects of risk management are not measurable – even
conceptually.
[1] For those of you
who are wondering, or those who want to go back in time, here is the “Marsha,
Marsha Marsha” clip on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yZHveWFvqM
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