CERM® Risk Insights

Current robots are only able to replace people in very limited circumstances. And people don’t want to work in factories. They want more comfortable jobs. That is what happens when standards of living and education rise. All people everywhere aspire to better lives.
Rodney Brooks- Robot Engineer

Quick Tech Futures joke? A textile mill has been automated. The mill only has two employees: a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog. The dog is there to keep the man away from the machines. This joke in various forms is repeated in terms of the impact of automation and robotics on almost all types of work. Like all jokes, there’s a grain of truth and even revelation in it.

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Guest Post by Bill Pomfret (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Some years ago, I was contracted to perform an audit of three government of Canada building, just over the bridge from Ottawa in Quebec. After meeting with the Occupational Health & Safety committee members, I decided to follow up on some of the concerns, it was not rocket science, in the basement, which was the carpark, plaster was flaking off the walls with water accumulating in puddles.

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Instead Of Reactive Responses

Guest Post by Daniel Burrus(first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

In years past, many businesses have succeeded with an agile, reactive approach to business where they respond to climate, competition, and social circumstances in an “after the fact” way. This focus was predominantly on responding to disruptions as they came in, putting out fires to solve issues.

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Just because I don’t have a college degree doesn’t mean I’m not smart!
Emma Stone – Actress

What’s your value-add to me – your employer? This is what most employers think? Tough thinking. Well, that’s the basis of a free market economy.

Story: My doc’s brother went to Harvard and got a history degree. The world doesn’t employ too many historians. What to do? Later in life, the Harvard grad did a Brand You Pivot and reinvented himself as an elite coder. The problem is he makes as much money as a community college trained coder in the same company. What do these people have in common?

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Guest Post by Bill Pomfret (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Just when we wonder what is next for the Cyber Criminals, they attack the colleges and Universities. The financial costs of school ransomware, the days lost to downtime and the number of students impacted, as these incidents snowball and become a steady source of criminal income. The history of ransomware, the most damaging ransomware attacks, and the future for this threat.

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‘Think in simples’ as my old master used to say – meaning to reduce the whole to its parts in simplest terms, getting back to first principles.
Frank Lloyd Wright – Architect

When you’re working, ‘are you in the flow’? This is the same idea of ‘being in the zone’ in sports or exercising Intentional Self-Management. The answer to this seeming simple question can make the difference between fun and dreading your work in VUCA time. Read on…

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Guest Post by James Kline (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Every year for over twenty years, the World Economic Forum has conducted a Global Risks Perception Survey.  The 2023 survey was conducted between September 7 and October 5, 2022. The responses are from over 12,000 business leaders in 21 countries.

In the survey, Global Risk is defined as “the possibility of the occurrence of an event or conditions which, if it occurs, would negatively impact a significant portion of global GDP, population, or natural resources.” (1)

The respondents were asked to look at the issue of risk on several levels.

1..Volitility
2. Severity – likely impact over a one-, two-, and ten-year horizon.
3. Consequence – potential impact.
4. Risk preparedness and governance – current effectiveness of ability to manage risk.
5. Qualitative Knowledge – identifying new or emerging risks.

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Guest Post by James Kline (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

On December 8, 2022, the Federal Reserve System published Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management for Large Financial Institutions in the Federal Register. This piece discusses the principles published in the register.

Purpose

The purpose of the publication of the principles is to receive comments on the high-level framework for the safe and sound management of exposures to climate-related financial risks and the consequences of transitioning to a lower carbon economy. (1) The guidance is for financial institutions with $100 billion in assets.

The principles have been reviewed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. This was done so all principles are consistent among organizations.

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Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

One man’s meat is another man’s poison” as coined over 2000 years ago by the Roman poet Lucretius still rings true today.  In these days of recycling, it’s akin to “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.  But what about toxicity?

Everything is toxic!  It’s just a matter of concentration and tolerance.  Just look at oxygen and water, both are essential to human life, but both can kill if there’s too much or too little of either.  Oscar Wilde, amongst others, is attributed with saying, “Everything in moderation, including moderation” providing a modern-day qualification to Socrates’ original of ‘nothing in excess”.  But moderation or excess are matters of opinion.

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Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure you do things differently from everyone else.
Sara Blakely – Founder of Spanx

Robots are coming is a common refrain in Tech Futures. Robots and smart machines are doing a lot of our work and will do a lot more over the next few years. Take a look below:

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Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Cultures rise and cultures fall.  That’s a fact.  We’ve had the Aztecs and Mayans of Central America, the Hittites of Asia Minor, ancient Egypt and its pharaohs as well as classical Greece and the times of Alexander the Great.  Genghis Kahn and his Mongol hoards created an empire and cultures that once dominated much of the known world. 

In more recent times we’ve experienced a few short-lived cultures.  Some, albeit too politically and morally sensitive to mention, only lasted for a matter of years despite proclaiming that they would last a millennium.

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Guest Post by Bill Pomfret (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Everyone comes to their workplace with the expectation, and often a clear plan, for an incident/accident-free day. And many times, the day goes just as planned, however 2.3 million people do not return home after work, they are killed by work related accidents and occupational exposures and diseases every single day, this corresponds to over 6000 deaths every single day.

That is only the tip of the iceberg, in addition there are around 340 million occupational accidents and another 160 million victims of work-related illnesses annually, many of which are life changing, not only to the victim, but often for whole families

These events are often sudden; someone or something is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and at that moment, perhaps only a split second, an incident or accident takes place.

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Guest Post by Howard Wiener (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

In the previous article in this series, we discussed the difference between Agile and business agility and how Agile 2 addresses some of the omissions and failings of traditional Agile.  Both Agile and Agile 2 focus on accelerating digital development; however, the benefits of any Agile approach can be obviated if it is not implemented within an agile management structure.  Addressing execution issues, as Agile 2 does, will not be sufficient by itself to get you where you need to go. 

Achieving business agility will also require that you reformulate your company into an agile organization capable of increasing the iteration speed of the Strategy-Execution Cycle we presented in the previous article.  This article will focus on aspects of what that will look like.

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Lengthy reigns at the top may be the next thing to get disrupted.
Carol Ryan – Wall Street Journal Writer

What’s the CEOs role in VUCA time? What do you think? According to the Wall Street Journal. “Point people to the light at the end of the tunnel” (Crash Course in Crisis Management, Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2020)

Story: The challenge: some CEOs are unfit for VUCA duty. In other words, they are not ‘VUCA or future-ready’. Take a look at what investors say in the Self Disruptive Leader survey from Korn Ferry (BTW: Pre-COVID:

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There are lots of lessons to learn from Amazon. Never stop innovating or questioning the fundamentals of your business. Disrupt yourself before others do.
Brad Stone – Journalist & Author

Consulting firms, academics, and consultants are developing Future Of Work models. Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) developed a scenario called the Future of Work: A Journey to 2022. The premise of the study is: “disruptive innovations are creating new industries and business models, and destroying old ones.” (‘The Future of Work: A Journey to 2022’, PwC, 2014).

 PwC outlined three distinct worlds of work: Orange, Green, and Blue.

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