Risk Assessment and Management Responsibility
First and foremost, my heart is with the American people, most especially with the people from New Orleans who have lost a loved someone, a friend, a home, anything, everything. There’s nothing I can do from here to make things better, except to tell you that my heart is with you all.
I’ve been following the news coming from the USA with much sorrow. Things are going really bad for the people who couldn’t (or didn’t want to) move from the Capital of Jazz when Katrina was predicted to hit the city, and many Americans are blaming the government for not acting faster in solving the crisis. It’s true; many things seem to have gone wrong: The city emergency plan considered the use of school and municipal buses in the event of an evacuation, but they weren’t deployed; people was sent to the Superdome, but no food nor water was available for everybody, and security there was minimum; the Federal Government (Bush et al) responded too slowly to the disaster when a quick response was needed; and so on. Days before the catastrophe, it was known that Katrina could cause a real major emergency in New Orleans, but emergency plans were not executed. So, who’s to blame? The ones who did not activate the Emergency Plan on time? Or the ones who did not grant the resources to manage the crisis in a timely manner?
Ok, let me introduce you to another approach: Risk Assessment. When you deal with many risks (from the management of a gas station to the management of a whole country) and have a tight budget (as it always happens), you should prioritize your resources by using them where they are most necessary. How do you do this? You classify your risks by their magnitude and their likelihood, and assign a priority degree, from high to low. Then, you assign your resources to the higher risks, because there’s where you can be hit harder. In the case of the USA, this assessment was already done by the Federal Emergency Management Agency before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters that they faced by then: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans.
This is how things happen: first, you do a Risk Assessment, then the Top Management analyses the data, and assigns resources to deal with the higher risks, and then a team is assigned to manage those resources and to “fix the risks”. When that’s done, you repeat the cycle, until all the risks are below a sound level. But then, what had happened in the USA? The analysis was done but the resources were allocated somewhere else (Irak?), and the higher risks were not faced. Result? From those three, two have already happened.
I used to work for a huge international corporation. If that company was in the position of the USA, meaning having two major crises from three already identified major risks, without having assigned adequate resources to face them, the Top Management would be history. Gone. Kaput. Because, you know what?, this is NOT how you face risks. This is not satisfactory Management.
I will say no more about this. Many Americans are discussing right now and realizing where the responsibilities lay. I only hope that the souls of those who lost their lives on New Orleans rest in peace, and that everybody else can resume his or hers normal live pretty soon.
Once again, my heart is with you New Orleans.
I’ve been following the news coming from the USA with much sorrow. Things are going really bad for the people who couldn’t (or didn’t want to) move from the Capital of Jazz when Katrina was predicted to hit the city, and many Americans are blaming the government for not acting faster in solving the crisis. It’s true; many things seem to have gone wrong: The city emergency plan considered the use of school and municipal buses in the event of an evacuation, but they weren’t deployed; people was sent to the Superdome, but no food nor water was available for everybody, and security there was minimum; the Federal Government (Bush et al) responded too slowly to the disaster when a quick response was needed; and so on. Days before the catastrophe, it was known that Katrina could cause a real major emergency in New Orleans, but emergency plans were not executed. So, who’s to blame? The ones who did not activate the Emergency Plan on time? Or the ones who did not grant the resources to manage the crisis in a timely manner?
Ok, let me introduce you to another approach: Risk Assessment. When you deal with many risks (from the management of a gas station to the management of a whole country) and have a tight budget (as it always happens), you should prioritize your resources by using them where they are most necessary. How do you do this? You classify your risks by their magnitude and their likelihood, and assign a priority degree, from high to low. Then, you assign your resources to the higher risks, because there’s where you can be hit harder. In the case of the USA, this assessment was already done by the Federal Emergency Management Agency before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters that they faced by then: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans.
This is how things happen: first, you do a Risk Assessment, then the Top Management analyses the data, and assigns resources to deal with the higher risks, and then a team is assigned to manage those resources and to “fix the risks”. When that’s done, you repeat the cycle, until all the risks are below a sound level. But then, what had happened in the USA? The analysis was done but the resources were allocated somewhere else (Irak?), and the higher risks were not faced. Result? From those three, two have already happened.
I used to work for a huge international corporation. If that company was in the position of the USA, meaning having two major crises from three already identified major risks, without having assigned adequate resources to face them, the Top Management would be history. Gone. Kaput. Because, you know what?, this is NOT how you face risks. This is not satisfactory Management.
I will say no more about this. Many Americans are discussing right now and realizing where the responsibilities lay. I only hope that the souls of those who lost their lives on New Orleans rest in peace, and that everybody else can resume his or hers normal live pretty soon.
Once again, my heart is with you New Orleans.
3 Comments:
Such a nice writing and you get spam for comments...
I couldn't agree more with you Giancarlo. Bad management. Very bad! and it is not only on this last crisis. That management tends to create crisis when they think the world needs one. Someone please show them the back door... or throw them in the pit with the crocodiles!!!
By
The Furui Man, at 9:54 AM
Racism in Katrina case does exist.
By
Eddie, at 3:16 PM
Racism is a very offensive word in the USA nowadays. I mean, all the companies are implementing anti-discrimination policies, and you could get lots of money in the court if you can prove some kind of discrimination against you. I think that's why some people are mentioning that word: because it can make things happen.
Nevertheless, I still insist that the main problem is that of a very bad management. And I talk not only about this crisis, but regarding the whole government approach towards risk analysis. A good management is called that not only because it leads an organization in the path of continuous growth, but also because it analyses the risks it faces, and works to prevent them. And the American Government has proven ineffective on this matter. What would you call a CEO of a company that even though knowing that three of its main factories may be destroyed by a fire or a flood, lets two of them disappear without doing anything to prevent it?
By
Giancarlo, at 11:31 AM
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