adminOurs was a case of missing death by a whisker. I escaped with minor scars on my back and my friends escaped without any bruises.
Immediately after the attack we reached a consensus that we would not fish in any dam again. We were merely complying with our induced fear just like many companies which treat risk management as a compliance issue as opposed to a strategic one.
We were quick in dealing with the emotion caused by the attack without paying attention to our fishing addiction. This happened in a dam that we thought was free of crocodiles though there was a signpost at the launch pad of the dam which was clearly written “Beware of crocodiles”.
We never took this warning seriously because we had never encountered any crocodiles during the six years we fished in that dam. The fact that we had not seen any did not eliminate the risk. We conveniently ignored the fact that crocodiles are migratory animals who move at night from one water body to the other during the rainy season.
The same applies to hippos as well. One can also fish comfortably in dams with crocs without noticing them due to the peaceful co-existence between human beings and crocodiles (or hippos), in the ecosystem.
Once in a while the co-existence can be disrupted by a hungry crocodile or a parenting hippo.
The fisherman has an obligation to be always on the lookout for crocodiles or hippos or snakes because they pause great danger to their life. In addition, the fisherman must also be on a watchout for areas in the dam which are vortex areas because these are areas where boats sink easily.
Business risks management
It is always safe to assume that every dam might have a crocodile or a snake or a hippo.
Therefore, one has to take the necessary precautions all the time. One precaution that comes to mind is that one should always look out for what looks like dead wood floating in the water which disappears after some time (in case of crocodiles).
Dead wood floats all the time but crocodiles can disappear into the water. Be cautious when you are getting into any dam just as business people must always be on guard against any potential risks emanating from anywhere.
Most of the risks that derail our business enterprises are not new to us. In most cases we have heard about them but we always believe they will affect other people’s business but not ours. Even though there was a warning sign at the dam we did not take it seriously.
In a corporate environment most risk management initiatives are not implemented due to lack of management buy-in. Though we heard that one fish monger had been attacked by the crocodile while setting up his net (10 years ago) at night, we thought this was a fairytale. Similarly some of our past mistakes are overlooked in our day-to-day management of business.
At times some risks are managed in silos instead of being integrated to the whole business strategy. We lost all our fishing equipment and I sustained injuries because we ignored the “crocodile warning” at the dam.
This restricted us to exploit further fishing opportunities in the short term. Failure to implement risk management strategies at workplace will increase insurance expenses and the overall cost of business contingency planning. In addition, this also diverted us from focusing on real issues of improving our quality of catch to focusing on our misfortunes. In short, this event increased our operational surprises and losses.
One common challenge which affects most entrepreneurs is that most of them don’t want to be controlled or to be answerable to anyone. You often hear them asking their employees: “Who is the owner of the business? Can I steal from myself?’’
However, reality on the ground is owners, in fact, steal from themselves when they fail to adhere to corporate governance principles and the results are there for everyone to see (fall from hero to zero).
The irrigation dam presented us with a great opportunity to enjoy fishing in a tranquil environment and at the same time presented us with an attendant risk which threatened our existence.
Where there is an opportunity, there is also a corresponding risk attached to the opportunity. This event in many respects reminds me of what my father used to say about being a man of character.
He said a man of character reads and interprets what he has learnt, internalises it and practices it.
Preaching and converting everyone without converting yourself is vanity. It is good to advise and counsel other people but also be counselled in the process of counselling.
I am a firm believer and preacher of risk management but did not practise it while fishing. Businesspeople must not just talk about risk management; they must practise what they talk about.
Every business enterprise encounters several risks in their day-to-day running of their business. Depending on the extent to which these risks affect your business they might be classified as minor, medium and major.
Minor risks can at times became major risks if mitigatory measures have not been put in place. We chose to ignore the warning sign at the dam and we nearly paid dearly for that. We are some of the few people who have been blessed enough to give the testimony of surviving crocodile attacks.
Most victims of crocodile attacks lost their lives, so are the businesses that fail to implement adequate risk management strategies.
After the crocodile attack we took our sabbatical leave from fishing which lasted only for a month. Thereafter, we were back to our usual habit of spending our weekends fishing.
The only difference this time around is that we were more alert and that our eyes were more useful in scanning the environment than before.
We can now see snakes swimming in the dam but before we hardly noticed these. Things like seemingly dead logs now attract our attention. Without alerting each other, all of us now fish with a knife tied at our waist line.
Continuous scanning the dam for these potential risks enables you to adequately prepare yourself against any of these eventualities. We were fortunate to survive the crocodile scare but some risks can completely destroy your business forever.
Prevention is always better than cure so business people are always encouraged to be proactive in evaluating their business risks and take necessary steps to mitigate the potential occurrence of those risks.
This can be done by setting up a management or board committee which investigates the risks which affect your business and come up with recommendations on how the company can manage the risks which the company is facing.
The cornerstone of any risk management initiative is to continuously scan the environment for any risk potential just as we continuously scan the environment for opportunities.
Newsome (2012) says the board and management of every organisation “help in establishing the tone at the top” that reinforces the organisational values and promotes the risk aware culture.
The true mark of management is to be able to anticipate the risks in advance and take mitigatory measures well before they occur.
The writer is a Managing Consultant at CLC Training International. E-mail [email protected]
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