The complexities of risk

I have been devoting more time on the matter of risk management in the past few weeks. Hence, this article by Ben Carlson caught my attention quite easily. As I read the article, it looked like the author had beautifully explained this topic, as if he was in my shoes…

When things feel safer, we let our guards down, which actually increases risk in many activities. Last year roads were far less congested because people weren’t traveling as much due to the pandemic. Yet U.S. traffic deaths were at a 13 year high, up 7% from the year before.

The same person can be an idiot or a maniac depending on the circumstances. Many of the early rocket prototypes were tested by Navy pilots. This technology was still new, unproven and highly dangerous. Yet more Navy pilots died in car crashes than air crashes during this time since they were more careful when flying and more reckless when driving.

The nature of risk is that you just don’t know until you actually try. So how are people supposed to survive in a world where risk perceptions are constantly changing, safety is often an illusion since risk never completely goes away and we know bad things can and will happen?

Understand normal accidents are inevitable - In a complex adaptive system, as the system grows in size and in the number of diverse functions they serve, functioning in ever more hostile environments, increasing their ties to other systems, they experience more and more incomprehensible or unexpected interactions. They become more vulnerable to unavoidable system accidents.

You can’t predict, but you can prepare - When they were testing the prototype for their first powered airplane, the Wright Brothers would always bring all sorts of different tools and parts for every test run. They knew they would have issues, but didn’t necessarily know what would go wrong ahead of time.

Learn to live with uncertainty - Managing risk boils down to controlling what you can control and understanding some outcomes are out of your hands.

Risk is a complicated topic. It’s hard to define. It’s impossible to eliminate. And our perception of risk can often have unintended consequences…