Can you control the risk?

Some years ago, I was witnessing lifeboat launching on a ship. I asked the officer, ‘what if the lifeboat wires parts?’

His response was, ‘why would that happen? That’s why we do a risk assessment.’

This is a recurring theme in risk management. That risk assessment has been completed gives people the confidence that the risk has been managed. When we look at the paper trail, we get to see how risk is pushed from red through orange to green. Sometimes the controls are realistic, and at other times we notice mindless slogans: ‘be careful’; ‘stand clear of the line of fire’; and ‘checked and found ok’.

We have a lot of words to control the risk – mitigation, reduction, prevention, and elimination. We have dashboards to measure them and mere three colours to view the risk. And we have pyramids that (always) point upwards to get us to Zero.

But we don’t have a language to discuss how people perceive the risk both individually and in groups. Does it matter? I think it does.

In high-risk activities, the last thing we want is for people to walk away in confidence that the risk has been ‘controlled’.

Few public inquiries find loopholes in documented processes and regulations. In most instances, the checks were completed on the paper, but dig deeper and no one was aligned about what ‘checked OK’ or ‘’be careful’ even meant.

Risk is most often hidden in our language. As risk managers, do we know how to listen to the subjective dimensions of risk?

Notice the two triangles in the picture. Each layer of control is met with a question at the other end. And at every layer, at least one assumption behind that control is being questioned. (You can have more).

There is a deeper message in all this. We do not need to disregard the value of controls, but we should also learn not to take those numbers and checks at their face value.

The question is not whether the wire will part or not, my concerns is, why won’t that capture your imagination?

We have gone too far towards controlling the risk. Perhaps we need some balance between objective and subjective risks.

Bringing this balance makes us humble, curious and doubtful about ourselves and others.