Page 104 - IRMSA Risk Report 2020

CREATING A RISK CULTURE FOR M ANA GING IN C OMPLEXIT Y :

CULTIV ATE CURIOSIT Y – in complexity threats, opportunities and answers are transient. Questions remain
useful

HARNESS DIVERSIT Y – a diversity of perspectives enables us to see what we don’t expect to see

ESTABLISH SITU ATIONAL A W ARENESS – resilience requires mechanisms and mindsets that expedite
feedback and action

PR OMO TE SENSE-M AKING – establish competencies and tools that allow context-sensitive action

NURTURE UNLEARNING (AND RE-LEARNING) – habits and mental models require continual revision

DE VEL OP AN EXPERIMENTAL MIND-SE T – multiple safe-to-fail experiments promote novelty and
innovation and mitigate unintended consequences

CREATE SAFE T Y – people need to feel safe to speak up and take appropriate action (sometimes by “breaking the
rules”)

A helpful tool for managing risk in such systems is a “human sensor network” which, like “the internet of things” can provide
information on emerging local and systemic patterns. Rather than static controls, the management of risk here involves
small interventions in real time that respond to these trends. In effect, a meta risk “control” is established by responding to
emerging patterns, small signals, and outliers.

In complex systems, surveys - like KPIs - can be “gamed”, providing misleading indicators and biased patterns. Human
networ therefor mak narrativ (stor t access “unfiltered” infor Br Brown
refers to this as “data with a soul”. The bias that experts bring when engaging with complex systems is well documented
- and these stories therefore are self-signified by the storyteller, thereby allowing quantitative techniques to be applied.

Digital platforms allow such human sensor networks to be implemented across entire organisations and across
organisational boundaries e.g. with customers, suppliers, and even citizens. As part of its 2020 Risk Report, IRMSA conducted
a study among executives, risk managers and specialists using just such a platform called Sensemaker®. One of the key
results of the survey is summarised below; how some of the competencies listed above are currently present in risk-based
decision making in the stories collected.

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