The chronicles of an Alarmist

 

According to wikipedia, Alarmism is excessive or exaggerated alarm about a real or imagined threat e.g. the increases in deaths from infectious disease.

I ural risk manager. I am an alarmist per excellence. For the most part, when most people see AMBER, I see RED. When most people are comfortable with GREEN, I am well considering what can go wrong. I am tempted to think I am paranoid but I have sufficient reasons to think that my tendency to see things from the risk management lens is more of a blessing than a curse. This perspective infact is a proof that I am not a naysayer.

So what is it about being an alarmist that is insanely cool? Is it the fact that my legs are often very close to the break while I am driving an automatic transmission geared car? Is it the part that I refuse to go through Oworonshoki by-pass because of the propensity of containerized vehicle to fall on cars? Is it the fact that in addition to my digital car security, I cannot but deploy my pedal locks even in my compound? I doubt if anybody will find being paranoid a very cool place to be perpetually. By the time you finish reading this, I hope I would have set you on the part of becoming a risk management evangelist.

In the Labour of Fools, I wrote about the reasons why managers fail. The conclusion of that piece was that not paying attention to details and early warning signs remains the cause of many catastrophic failures in the corporate arena. In that piece I used the analogy of my Lagos to Offa trip. I articulated why not paying attention to my dashboard caused everybody in the convoy including myself pain and stress.

This story is another one. This time like in the labour of fools, the warning signs were there.

 
........And my break failed

Lagos, December 2010 remains a very fresh date in the capital of my mind. The Vitamin D laden soft afternoon sun was just coming out. With me was a cousin (Muyiwa) who was my co-pilot. It was an elderly cousin's wedding. The task was very simple. I was instructed to move drinks from his house along inner Ojodu to the reception venue at Agindingbi. We had made the first round of delivery and were on the way to deliver the second tranche of drinks when the bubble burst. Descending from a slope steep at Omole-Agindingbi junction, the car break failed. Less than 100 meters in front of me was a T junction that had a gridlock. Here was I, a rookie with little or no experience or insight about how to stop an automatic geared car. My speedometer read 60 but the speed was heightened because of the slope. I announced to the occupants of the car "Our break has failed". I had at the back of the Honda Accord 2000 model, three middle aged women in addition to my co-pilot. Once I announced to them, they erupted with great noise. I had seconds to make a decision that could lead to very damning consequences. I had two options. To think I was driving without a valid driver’s license made the case worse.


My first option was to ram into the gridlock of vehicles. The impact of this would be gross. The very sure part was that I would have damaged the rear of the unfortunate car that would get the hit. Other likely consequences were the possibility that I could have triggered multiple accidents. Not a very palatable decision to make considering the fact that I would as a matter of certainty gotten the car damaged. This was not negotiable. My second option was to move to the feeder lane with the hope that there were no cars to hit. This seemed like a smarter choice. I took the latter option. Today, the rest is history. I was not sentenced for manslaughter. I got the car significantly bruised. I almost killed two people (a motorcycle rider and his passenger). Their seeming lifeless bodies were lying on the ground for almost 60 seconds. They suffered a hit against a bus at the time I entered into the feeder lane at the T junction. The experience to say the least was gruesome in all material respects. This was avoidable if only I had checked the indicators. The break light was flagging down all the time. On a lighter mood, this event confirmed to me how insensitive most people are about the human life. This was broad day light and nobody cared to render help. I was very much on my own.

Three years after, having deepened my understanding of risk management as a practitioner, I am well able to relate to the theory and practice of risk and risk management. Risk is essentially anything that can go wrong. We live in a world of uncertainty where we must continually ask WHAT CAN GO WRONG. The moral of the stories (The labour of fools and how my break failed) is that with a great certainty, things don't just happen. For the most part, there are early warning signs. There are Key Risk Indicators (KRIs) that herald a risk event. Our failure and/or inability to recognise or act on these signs often determines the outcome.

From my experience, the early warning signs were screaming on top of their voices but my deafness was very acute. I dare to say that while risk management is not about being paranoid, there is much that is required by us to seek out the early warning signs in all professional engagements and personal quest. A proverbial adage says that "The dog that will get lost will not hear the hunters whistle".

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