RISK, it’s kind of the name of the game for Emergency Managers we identify it, assess it, mitigate it, and plan to work within the residual picking up lessons learned. But do we truly understand what risk is beyond Threat x Vulnerability = Risk? In this month’s book, we explored the topic of risk and the Risk Immune System (a new term for me) in detail. I have worked with risk a lot throughout my military career and have considered it a relationship to be managed and mindful of. Just like a relationship, some have healthy ones with constant open communication, attention, and learning that endure and others have dysfunctional ones void of meaningful communication and neglected needs that fall apart. After reading this book, I have a new perspective on the relationship with risk being more like our relationship with our immune system.
Gen, McChrystal identified four functions of the Risk Immune System: Detect – Asses – Response – Learn, just like our body’s immune system. To maintain a healthy Risk Immune System, there are ten dimensions of control in an organization that must be monitored and adjusted, and they are:
Communication – Clear, open, and two-way communication, mindful of misinformation.
Narrative – The story we tell about ourselves.
Structure - How we organize ourselves.
Technology - Awareness and how to use technology to best support the needs of the organization.
Diversity – Not only gender and racial but also cognitive and expertise diversity; rarely does this result in harmony.
Bias – Conscious or unconscious assumptions that influence what we believe.
Action – Willingness to overcome the inertia that inhibits survival.
Timing – Acting when the moment is right.
Adaptability – (Pivoting) Willingness and ability to change when needed.
Leadership – Central to the Risk Immune System, an art and a science.
The stronger we build our Risk Immune System, the more resilient our organizations become. Strengthening our Risk Immune System is like strengthening our body. It requires proper training and nutrition. While we need to make each control factor as strong as possible, when needed, the system will have to use a combination of controls requiring teamwork, an often-difficult task within organizations. This is best achieved through collaborative efforts in assessing and planning for identified risks. Although most plans are useless when needed, it is through assessing planning we gain a better collective understanding of our ability to respond and the need to be agile.
I think this book is a must-read for Emergency Managers, as practitioners’ risk is what we do, and this book offers some very useful tools and how to use them (chapters 16 & 17). Add these tools to your toolbox, keep them sharp, and “lets kick some ass today”.
Take Aways
Risk is invasive everywhere. We cannot eliminate it, we cannot completely avoid it, and pretending it is not there is not effective. Like a virus to our body, our best defense is a healthy Risk Immune System that accepts that there is risk and develops the ability to Detect – Asses – Response – Learn in response to it.
A healthy Risk Immune System requires strengthening the individual control factors and using them collectively to address risk.
The strength and value of each Risk Control Factor are important, but the true health of a Risk Immune System is determined by how the control factors interact.
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