Risk Management – Principles for Responding to Unexpected, Catastrophic Black Swan Events

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StrategyDriven Risk Management ArticleBlack Swans events are rare (low probability), catastrophic (high impact) incidents that are seemingly unpredictable, go unrecognized, or are deemed so unlikely as to not reasonably warrant expensive preventive measures. There characteristics include:

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Playing to Win in Business

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The “game” of business is one of the most challenging and rewarding games we can choose to play. In order to succeed, you need to understand that you are playing a game — often with high stakes. Here are some principles that can help you master your business game.

#1 Life Is Made Up of Games

Work is a game. Before jumping in or when you feel you are stalled, take time to consciously answer these questions: “What are the rules? What is the strategy? What does it take to succeed in this game?”

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About the Author

Shirley WeisShirley Weis is the author of Playing to Win in Business, an award-winning book that helps women (and men) navigate the sometimes-confusing games of the workplace. She is also President of Weis Associates, LLC and a Special Advisor to the President of Arizona State University. Prior to forming Weis Associates, LLC, she was the Chief Administrative Officer of Mayo Clinic, a 60,000 employee, $9 billion international healthcare organization.

Applications Being Accepted for Intensive Military to Civilian Career Transition Program

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Online applications are being accepted through Feb. 8, 2016 for the seventh cohort of the Leveraging Military Leadership Program.

The program, which is designed to create successful transitions from military to civilian careers, is open to Veterans of any rank who left the service in the last two years or who will transition in the next six months. To date, more than 250 service members from all branches of the military have participated in this pro bono program.

Participants will be guided by a team of global leadership experts from Korn Ferry Hay Group and Harris Corporation, who will lead Veterans through a three-month program composed of on-line, remote, and in-person assessments, coaching, instruction, group exercises and lectures. The in-residence portion of the program takes place from Friday, April 8 through Sunday, April 10 in Herndon, Virginia. Veterans will receive the same research-based leadership development services offered by Hay Group to Boards, CEOs and senior executives at leading global organizations.

Veterans engage in topics such as defining a career vision, mapping out a targeted post-military career strategy, and creating an action plan that includes networking, using social media and refining their engagement and interviewing techniques.

The transition from a military career to a civilian career is difficult and challenging. But it’s not a full switch. While there are drastic differences between military culture and corporate culture, there are many transferrable skills – and more than most Veterans (and hiring managers) initially believe. The fact is that military professionals have built capabilities during their careers in essential and in-demand competencies, such as planning, problem-solving, team building, crisis management, managing diversity and dealing with ambiguity.

Helping Companies Leverage Military Leadership

Companies that make the commitment to concerted Veteran hiring efforts will not be disappointed. Consider the following tips for finding, hiring and keeping qualified Veterans:

  • Look in the right places when sourcing – Employers will need to create a strong employer value proposition, whereby Veterans know their service will be honored and valued. That means having hiring managers trained and dedicated to sourcing Veterans, perhaps creating online talent communities geared specifically to the Veteran audience.
  • Educate managers – Those who manage Veterans should be offered development opportunities to help them understand the unique attributes of Veterans and how to translate their skills into the civilian world.
  • Help Veterans translate their unique skills into civilian attributes – Ask a Veteran what she did while she was in the military, and she may say, “I drove a ship.” That Veteran should be coached to go beyond what they did into why it matters, such as it helped her learn to deal with ambiguity and instill trust in others.
  • Create ongoing development – There is no doubt that the civilian world is different from military service. Help the Veteran adapt through programs that, for example, help him or her “influence without authority” instead of the traditional military hierarchy.

Veterans entering the civilian workforce offer tremendous skills and represent an incredible talent source for employers nationwide. We are proud to host the Leveraging Military Leadership Program, which goes beyond traditional training to enable Veterans to develop their own individual strategies to begin and grow their professional careers.

About the Author

Randy Manner, Korn Ferry Senior Partner and Army Major General, Retired

Why have a Risk Management Program?

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Most people think of risk management as an insurance policy, the price paid to help prevent potentially negative outcomes from being realized by their company. Such a view leads to the conclusion that risk management is a business expense with a highly subjective value proposition.

We at StrategyDriven would suggest the insurance view of risk management is far too narrow. Instead, effective risk management enables a company to accelerate its business operations and to become more aggressive in the marketplace; approaches that in today’s fast paced environment is immeasurably valuable.

An analogy we use is that instead of correlating risk management to an insurance policy, leaders should think of it in terms of a high performance automotive breaking system. High performance breaks, such as those on racing cars, enable the driver to reach higher rates of speed while still maintaining the same level of safety as slower drivers whose cars have less capable breaking systems.

In the case of an effective risk management program, earlier warning of potentially adverse events occurs such that less costly adjustments can be made to avoid those risks; allowing the organization to speed its decisions and actions while maintaining the same risk profile as a company employing a less effective risk management program. Thus, an effective risk management system serves as both an insurance policy and a performance enhancer.

About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal, and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Using Follow Up Effectively

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Do you attempt to follow up with prospective buyers because they haven’t contacted you when you thought they should? Do you know what is stopping them from contacting you? Or where they are along their decision path – their steps from idea to consensus, from change to choice, that buyers must address – while we sit and wait, hoping they’ll close?

With a focus on understanding need and placing solutions, you may have no idea what stage they are at: did you originally connect when they were first considering possibly fixing something? Or when they were comparing your solution to an internal workaround or their favorite vendor? Were they just seeking information to share at a planning session? I bet you don’t have all the data on this.

Buyers Don’t Want Us Even When They Need Our Solution

We tend to think buyers need our solution, but that’s only a part of the issue. They don’t really want to buy anything, merely to solve a problem. And they always start out by trying to find a way to fix the problem themselves (When we think they are stalling, this is what’s going on that we don’t see.); it’s only when they realize that a workaround isn’t sufficient, or their internal folks can’t resolve the problem, or their regular vendors aren’t around, or or or… are they willing to buy.

But they have work to do before they are ready – and cannot not buy, regardless of how great a fit your solution is with their need, until these steps are completed (and all sizes/types of solutions require some form of these):

  1. They must assemble anyone who will touch the final solution, (not obvious)
  2. get buy in and consensus from both decision makers and influencers, (not easy)
  3. manage any change a solution will bring. (complicated, even with a small sale).

Price is not the issue. Competition with other providers is not the problem. The problem is how they will manage the internal change your solution incurs (separate from the benefits of your solution). Read my article on the complete list of steps buyers must take before they can buy.

If you want to facilitate their decision making, and your prospect is aware they need your solution and they seem to be stalling, call with these questions:

  • What would you and your decision team need to address to manage the types of change that would be required by purchasing our solution?
  • How will you and the decision team know that an external solution might be more effective and efficient than an internal workaround?

I’ve developed Buying Facilitation® to use in conjunction with the sales model to give you the tools to help buyers manage the necessary steps to be ready to buy your solution. Use your follow up contact to help them figure out how to resolve any of these issues that might cause them to be stuck. Your solution is perfect for them; they just need help getting their ducks in a row so they can give you the order.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is a visionary, original thinker, and thought leader in change management and decision facilitation. She works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant, and has authored 9 books including the NYTimes Business BestsellerSelling with Integrity. Morgen developed the Buying Facilitation® method (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) in 1985 to facilitate change decisions, notably to help buyers buy and help leaders and coaches affect permanent change. Her newest book What? www.didihearyou.com explains how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She can be reached at [email protected]