We’re a train…

entering a dark tunnel, but there is light in the distance, and if we adapt and respond positively to the uncertainty we face, we can come out the other end a better train…. It will look different…. It will feel different…. And if we want it to be better, we will need to embrace change.

If risk is ‘the effect of uncertainty on objectives’ (ISO 31000), then unarguably now is the greatest moment of uncertainty we have ever faced (as individuals and as a business). Through uncertainty comes the necessity to look at things differently and to do things differently from before.

If we have to work from home and can’t travel to work, how can we continue to deliver timely and quality work to our customers?

Risk management is a means of preserving and creating value – Preserving value by understanding the threats is important, but equally important (if not more so now) is creating value by identifying opportunities for new ways in which to work. Risk management enables us to understand our objectives and paint a future of what could be, to help us identify opportunities.

A good way of starting this is to understand our value proposition by asking active and open questions so we can use our imagination to then ‘see’ things we couldn’t before. We can ask:

• Which needs or products are taking centre stage?
• What customer needs exist for which there is no current solution?
• What are we not doing for our customers?
• If we were starting over now, what company and offering would we build?
• Why are today’s loyal customers still doing business with us?

By staying flexible and understanding how we can find opportunities in what’s different now, we can come out of this better, stronger and different.

Inspiration material: We need imagination now more than ever, HRB.org, 10 April 2020