Rod Richards

Everyone should have untapped potential, especially in a strategy role. A strategy role is a multidimensional role. One moment may require advanced financial modeling and another moment that same person will be facilitating a group through conformity bias. A solitary strategy professional should have untapped skills every moment of every day like a multitool. If a strategy person is a one-trick-pony, then I hope they are part of a diverse team. If so, then maximizing that one-trick becomes the challenge of utilizing that person's potential.

The guidance provided for this topic starts with “Calculate” and speaks of “multiplication”, “formulas”, and “averages.” This is guidance for operational risks and not strategic risks. The more strategic the risk, the less likely quantitative measurement is practical. If something is highly measurable and predictable, it is an operational risk. If the risks are strategic, uncertainty to achieve strategic objectives, risk exposure will be more qualitative. Also, beware of the trap of believing that quantitative measurements are free of biases. Organizations are led by people with their own opinions and agendas. KPIs, KRIs, and scorecards can all be ‘gamed’ to influence outcomes. Quantitative is great but be careful.

As it relates to storytelling, I like analogies. Given the global nature of most situations, I stay away from sports analogies. If a sports analogy makes sense, then I will talk about futbol. Many colleagues will only know a locally popular sport and some colleagues may not like any sports analogies. A few will stop listening as soon as they hear about sports. My first preference for analogy is something that everyone, or most everyone, can relate to. Try to use managing a home, prepping a meal, or travelling. Be careful with analogies and storytelling to not confuse people with stories or analogies that they do not immediately understand. Also, some topics are sensitive topics.

I philosophically differ from the ‘crowd’ on risk appetite. Consistently, risk professionals will speak to risk appetite as one measure for their whole company/enterprise. Generally, most ERM professionals work at companies with some size and complexity. Given that, the organization likely has an array of risk appetites across the functions. It’s fine for a part of the larger organization that’s supposed to be taking risks (maybe R&D) to have a different risk appetite than a part of the organization that is the cash-cow or maintaining critical systems. There is trouble in just rolling these up or averaging these or even trying to monetize them. Be careful with how this is used.

Each agenda item will have a topic. And each agenda item will likely have a desired outcome. i.e., we are going to spend an hour on Topic A. Why? Because we expect an outcome of that hour on Topic A. The challenge is to know what activity will result in the desired outcome. We can stand in front of a group and talk about “A”, but what is the activity that leads us to that outcome? A SWOT, pairwise comparison, brainstorming, etc.? In a workshop there is likely a series of topics that need activities to lead to a series of outcomes for the total workshop outcome to be reached. This is the mastery of setting up an effective workshop.

Rather than "Goal", it was a priority of work. My priorities were 1) Protect the business. 2) Enable the business. 3) Provide deep expertise. If someone is not doing #1, then do #2. If not #1 or #2, do #3. #3 requires continuous improvement and education. This is an adaptation of my time in the military. 1) complete the missions 2) sustainment 3) sharpen the axe.