Time for risk consensus-comment

The institute decided to up the ante somewhat with this event by holding it at the BT Convention Centre, one of the UK’s brightest new conference centres and it was a good choice. University campuses have a place for such events. If nothing else they remind those of us lucky enough to have gone to university of days long gone by, when the biggest worry was where the next quid was going to come from for the next beer or, more sensibly, jacket potato. But for an educational institute intent on building on its position as the world’s pre-eminent risk management education body and expanding its footprint ever-wider this was a good decision. The IRM managed to attract an impressive array of speakers that included Jeevan Perera, risk manager for NASA, Gert Cruywagen, director of risk for the Tsogo Sun Group and the main man in South African risk management circles, Paul Dwyer of eircom group and renowned cyber-risk expert and Professor Gerd Gigerenzer, director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy.hideThese headline speakers were supported by a great group of panellists for the debate including Stuart Siddall, chief executive of the Association of Corporate Treasurers and Julie Bamford, joint director of policy, corporate, for the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, and numerous other workshop leaders. Fiercely independent educational bodies such as the IRM cannot run themselves like huge profit-making concerns that hold their events in swanky golf resorts of course. That would send the wrong message to fee-paying members and hard working foot soldiers alike. But if the IRM is to play its hopefully significant role in the global effort to persuade company boards, governments and other social and economic leaders to finally take risk management seriously it needs to look and act like it should be taken seriously. Holding a high-profile event in a decent, modern venue that offers the overwhelmingly enthusiastic delegates the kind of content they are justified to expect can only help the cause. The discussion, particularly during the panel debate on the Wednesday morning, once again underlined, however, that the challenge that faces the risk management profession to finally be accepted at the highest echelons remains large and cannot be won through choice of meeting venue alone. The stars are aligned for risk management like never before. The financial crisis proved to everyone who ever doubted it that failure to take risk management seriously will have dire consequences. The political change in North Africa and the Middle East shows just how systemic such risk can be and the recent slew of dramatic natural catastrophes served to remind us once again just how vulnerable we all are to forces that are out of our control, but which can be mitigated through effective risk and crisis management. But there is a real danger that once again the reaction to this remarkable confluence of events will be the production of huge swathes of tick boxes and fine words that cover a lot of political rear-ends but ultimately fail to deliver substantially improved financial, economic, social and political risk management that we so clearly need. The message was clear from this IRM meeting that this opportunity cannot be missed. The risk management community needs to grasp this one and not let go until real progress has been made, not least a clear commitment at the highest corporate and political levels that risk managers need a seat on the board. The big challenge remains how to do this. How to turn the fine words into action and acceptance before the opportunity is missed and everyone gets back to making as much money as possible and parks the lessons of the recent past until the next slew of disasters occur. I would have to say that the answer to that remains worryingly open, based on the evidence in Liverpool this week. The diversity of participants at this IRM gathering was a good thing because it confirmed how important it is for all players in the risk game to pull together for the common good. Everyone agrees on that point. But, there is still a very wide range of views on how the next big step can be made to truly embed risk management into strategic thinking and action at the highest level. For practising risk managers the answer is clear: appoint the risk manager to the board and finally give them the power and authority to direct and coordinate an enterprise-wide risk management strategy that is given as much, if not more, importance than the short-term profit and loss endeavour. But that is a big ask and equivalent to asking a President or Prime Minister to take the long-term health of the nation more seriously than the coming budget or next election. European governments took such a step when they formed the European Union, fundamentally in an effort to try and overcome the kind of rampant national interest with a longer-term project. The problem for the EU is that to really achieve its laudable long-term goals it has to ask its member states to sacrifice cherished and hard-fought national sovereignty and a culture of self interest, personal gain and aggrandizement, which the entire capitalist system is built upon. Arguably risk management faces the same problem. To be properly accepted and embedded in corporate and governmental thinking the very culture has to change, and in a world increasingly dominated by essentially US style free-market economics that will be increasingly difficult to achieve. How likely is it that the current crop of Chinese and Indian leaders are going to potentially sacrifice stellar economic growth for the benefits of a Scandinavian-style system that places the wider good at the top of the priority pile? Not very. As so often with big goals like this it is best to start at the bottom and work upwards. Debate must be continued and stepped up with other professions and ‘departments’ to seek a more coherent consensus on what kind of risk management is needed, how it can be achieved and how it needs to be led. Once this consensus has been found then a more convincing argument can be presented to the financial, economic, social and political leaders that really matter. Until this conceptual consensus is reached it is unlikely that we will march much further than: ‘Yes risk management is a good thing...but remind me what it means for me?’

Time for risk consensus-comment

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