How do you make decisions in your personal life?
How do you decide where to live, which car to buy, and where to go for lunch?
For many of us, the last is the most difficult decision to make in a day!
So let’s think about it.
It’s lunch time. Even if your watch didn’t tell you, your stomach is loud.
The first decision is whether you are going to eat at all.
Can you afford the time? Can you afford not to eat, given what lies ahead in your day?
What can you get done if you skip lunch? What will suffer if you don’t?
Did you bring your lunch to work? That would provide a compromise solution: eat while you work. Do you really want to do that and risk getting stains on your papers? Is it accepted behavior or will you be forced to leave your workspace for a lunch room or similar – in which case, time might be saved but the idea of eating and working may not be achieved.
If you have to get some lunch, where do you go?
Do you go where you love the food, or where you can get a quick bite of so-so flavor and be back at work promptly, or do you go somewhere where the food is just OK but at least is relatively quick?
Or, do you gather up some colleagues and have a lunch together? This may help with team spirit and other objectives but would take longer. Maybe your colleagues ‘expect’ you to go with them and failing to do so will affect your relationship with them.
Can you afford the time, given how much work you have and the deadlines given you by your boss?
There’s more to the lunch issue (such as how will you get to the restaurant and when you should leave), but let’s leave it there.
What we did was consider our current situation and determine whether it was acceptable or not. We decided that it was not, because we needed (and wanted) to eat. The value of eating outweighed the loss of time (sorry, boss).
We then considered all the options, the benefits and downsides of each.
We made a decision.
Where was the risk manager with his list of potential harms?
Did we have a separate analysis of the risks from any analysis of the benefits (getting more work done, satisfying the boss, enjoying our food, and being ready for the rest of the day)?
What would you say if one of your colleagues responded to every suggestion about a restaurant by pointing out what could go wrong (bad food, food poisoning, delays getting back, unpleasant service, and so on)?
Would you say he or she was doing their job well and look for a separate colleague to identify and assess all the good things that might happen by going to this or that restaurant?
Can risk practitioners continue to be the voice of gloom and expect to be asked to join the CEO for lunch at his or her club?
I welcome your thoughts.
Norman D. Marks, CPA, CRMA
He retired in early 2013. However,he still blogs, writes, trains, and speaks – and mentors individuals and organizations when he can.
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