Replying to LO29108 --
I like this rule a lot. I was at a risk association conference (Survive)
where the keynote was made by a CEO who said companies cannot avoid risk
this side of heaven. The system logic of this is that if you seek to be an
industry (sector) leader you should work out what the biggest risk (aka
responsibility) being in your industry (and having your people
comepetences) should be about; and become a centre of excelence for this
risk, inviting even competitors to collaborate in it. He went as far as
saying that savvy companies would present the biggest risk at annual
shareholders meeting etc. Nicely putting a new conversational spin into
the dynamic.
I believe he is absolutely right. Indeed you could say that any company
that thinks of itself as a leader that doen't promote and thus care to
prevent its largest risk - or to proact collaboratively its greatest
responsibility - brings the whole of systems theory into disrepute. I
would say - how many LO'ers do? One day I think we should build a web -
start with Fortune's 100 largest comapnies in world; have a thread
sdiscussion against each of what's its largest risk is and grade its
standards on how well it systemises its responsibility. Very quickly
companies valuation should go down until they did take responsibility
----- Original Message -----
>From: "Wirth, Ross" <RWIRTH@citgo.com>
>
> Let me add one very similar to Alan's.
>
> Business is knowledgeable acceptance of risk. If you have a culture that
> avoids risk as its prime directive, you have a company that is going out
> of business.
>
> I wrote this after being requested to do additional analysis that would
> not alter the inevitable decision in either direction. I likened the
> situation to where everyone knew we had to walk West, only we didn't know
> how far. All other directions had been eliminated and West was the only
> possible direction and staying where we were was not an option. However,
> this particular manager wanted to know how far we needed to walk before
> agreeing to start the walk. The fact that the proper distance would
> become obvious once we started walking and got closer did not sufficiently
> eliminate the risk of not knowing how far we needed to go. After a great
> deal of delay, some guesses were prepared and the journey finally started.
--"Chris Macrae" <wcbn007@easynet.co.uk>
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