Article

Knowing the origin of a risk

Let me start with a life example. When a woman learns she’s pregnant, the first likely questions she asks herself are, “when did I get pregnant?”

The second set of questions is, “Is it a girl or a boy? Will the baby be healthy? How can I be sure that everything will work out in the long term? These questions are fundamental to preparing for the arrival of a baby.

With Covid-19, the first obvious question should be: what is the origin of this virus?

Remarkably, this question is not on the radar of most scientists or world leaders. In fact, those who have raised it have been stopped dead in their tracks.

Our first lesson is that it takes courage to address the question of the origin of a risk. It requires finesse. You’re not looking for someone to blame. But the answer is essential for appropriate and effective risk management.

A risk evolves over time

I’m no virology expert, but as far as we know, most viruses mutate (although not all do, e.g. polio). Now, does the Covid-19 virus mutate?

Here again, this key question rarely seems to be asked by experts. But the impact is enormous.

The second lesson is that we need to examine how a risk evolves over the long term. This means that while we need to resolve the immediate consequences of a risk, we also need to think about how future events can be mitigated. This requires a cool head.

In fact, most people work in reactive mode. Experts, on the other hand, aim for proactive management, looking at ways of mitigating events and damage in the long term.

Effective mitigation actions

What are the factors that propagate Covid-19? That’s where our managers have been pretty successful. This has led to appropriate risk management mitigation measures: regular hand washing, for example.

Coherence of risk containment actions

How to trace potential infections and manage containment? Again, this is on the radar of our leaders, with many variations in implementation. At one extreme, we find China, literally locking people in their homes. On the other, we might find Brazil or Sweden. Most people are baffled by the inconsistent rules established by various countries, even within the same country.

Our fourth lesson is that inconsistent containment plans lead to chaos. Containment measures must make sense. What is needed is to define a clear but tailored set of measures that tries to take all factors into account and adjust the cursor over time with appropriate communication. This is rather difficult to achieve!

Conclusion

As we’ve seen, Covid-19 risk management still has plenty of room for improvement. And what about improving risk management in your business environment?

Tackling risk requires asking difficult or painful questions, while maintaining a gentle approach. It requires expertise!