The year of the rooster

Further examination of the rooster personality reveals more apposite qualities for risk managers. It is said that the rooster has the ability to divine the future, a trait also featured in Greek mythology and drawn from the rooster’s principal purpose as nature’s alarm clock.

Consequently, those born in the year of the rooster are thought to be able to discern future events. If risk managers were to be granted their very own superpower, this clairvoyance would probably be it.

Legend also lists some of the softer skills associated with the rooster—sociable, capable speakers, quick-witted and with a good dress sense—all properties that were clearly evident at the recent Parima conference in Hong Kong [see p9-12] and which surely every risk manager would recognise in themselves.

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Somewhat confusingly though, horoscope literature reveals that the rooster can also be self-aggrandising, arrogant, impetuous, overly hasty and wild—character traits more suited to an entrepreneur than a risk manager, maybe even one with a background in real estate and a future in the White House.

Of course, it is not unusual for a horoscope to make contradictory predictions. To some, this is the yin and yang that make up the tapestry of life. To others, it is a basic hedging technique designed to cover all bases—akin to the fortune teller that predicts you will have a birthday this year.

Or maybe it is a reminder that there is a difference in how we, as risk managers, view ourselves and how we are viewed by others. Risk managers may see themselves as the architects and operators of a critical, enterprise-wide risk framework that keeps the company stable.

Others may see the risk manager as the person with the basement office that insists all employees fill out a risk assessment questionnaire every time they take a toilet break.

The recent Parima conference was well enough organised to prevent it from being an event where risk managers talked to risk managers about risk management. Instead, it injected insights from insurers, entrepreneurs and other job functions, with a different perspective on corporate life.

If risk managers are to make one new year’s resolution, let it be to make a greater effort to converse and work with other colleagues holding different perspectives to our own.