If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.-- Neil Simon I prefer audiobooks because I can multitask trail running with my passion for books without having to give up those valuable hours at the end of the day when I fall asleep 2 paragraphs into an anticipated read. But I did find time to read through Risk: A User’s Guide* by General Stanley McChrystal, retired 4-star general in the U.S. Army. *as a member of Amazon associates they give me a portion of the sales if you click through. Easy way to support my work at no cost to you! The military assessments are riveting but the part I wanted to share really resonates with the data analysis I perform in the healthcare realm. This is also the book I use as a framework for working with health system executives. Confucius says, “The beginning of wisdom is the ability to call things by their right names.” Discussions about risk are no different. Are we envisioning the same threats when I use the word risk? What do we mean when we talk about calculating risk? What can happen when we delay focusing on data that measures risk? Threat x Vulnerability = Risk What a seamless definition of risk. “If there are no threats--our vulnerabilities don’t matter and If we have no vulnerabilities--threats don’t matter The foundation of the book for me is the ten dimensions of control present in all organizations but typically in varying amounts of effectiveness. I am sharing this not as a substitute for the book but to hopefully stimulate the same ‘aha' moment I experienced. Communication: Exchange of information |Clear, concise, accurate, and timely information is hard to come by| Narrative: Telling others what you do |How we think of ourselves--and tell our story--does much to drive our behavior and determine outcomes| Structure: Organizational design and processes |Ultimately, organization matters. An improperly assembled weapon will not fire| Technology: Applying resources and expertise |Technology raises a new question: Who or what is in control| Diversity: Leveraging a range of perspectives |If you don’t see and address a problem from multiple perspectives, you’ll miss something--and it may be the critical thing| Bias: Assumptions of how the world influences us |Just because we believe something doesn’t make it so| Action: Overcoming inertia to respond |Typically, for anything to get done, someone has to do something| Timing: When we act impacts effectiveness of response |When you do something is often as important as what you do| Adaptability: Responding to changing risks |If it’s stupid and it works--it isn’t stupid| Leadership: Directing the overall Risk Immune System(Detect--Assess--Respond--Learn) |Leadership, more than any other factor, can make the system function or fail| Each of the above tactics are explored in detail in the book but I think you can see a path emerging. Combined they are an assessment of an organizational Risk Immune System but that organization can also be an N of 1 independent consultant (me) or a large Fortune 500 company (not me). These 10 elements build the framework for defining a data question, how to respond, select datasets, and execute a plan.
I never argue with Confucius. What do you think? What are you reading? Comments are closed.
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