If..., Then...: The Power of Risk Management for Busy People with Other Things to Do

IF…, THEN…

The Power of Risk Management for

Busy People with Other Things to Do

Tom O’Connor

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© 2014 Tom O’Connor. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/29/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4969-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4968-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014919313

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Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. What Is Risk Management?

2. Benefits

3. How to Identify

4. Probability and Impact

5. How to Avoid

6. How to Anticipate (Part 1)—Trip Wires and Trip Wire Monitors (Knowing When Action Is Needed)

7. How to Anticipate (Part 2)—Actions to Mitigate and Authority to Mitigate

8. What Have Your Accomplished Here?

9. You Can Do This

10. Epilogue

Glossary of Terms

About the Author

List of Examples

Definition: Risk

Definition: Assumptions

Definition: Actions to Avoid

Definitions: Trip Wire and Trip Wire Monitor

Definition: Mitigation Actions

Definition: Authority to Mitigate

To those who prefer to avoid problems rather than spending valuable time and resources just to get back to where you had been.

Preface

This book is based upon the one singular belief that the discipline of comprehensive risk management can bring tangible bottom-line benefits to owners, executives, and managers who haven’t previously given it much thought.

This belief shatters some time-tested conventional wisdom while guiding you to success in managing your risks, specifically the following:

1. A common consulting technique is to employ some assessment or other diagnostic tool to convince the client that additional products and services are required to reach the stated goal.

• As a veteran of forty years of consulting as an employee of large, well-known firms, I am fully aware of this tactic. But, quite frankly, I’m old enough to want to avoid returning to the life of a road warrior at this stage of my life.

• This book will guide you to independence and self-sufficiency in managing your own risks and, it will accomplish this during the first experience with the process as long as you pay attention. No additional products are needed; any additional services should be minimal or totally unnecessary.

2. Consultants must come with experience and insights into your industry to be worth their fees.

In many instances, this is correct, but there are also instances where the consultant and/or the tool can effectively facilitate drawing on your insights to create actionable information. This is one of those instances.

3. Risk management requires high cost and commitment in terms of money and time and also requires lots of specialized expertise.

None of these are true. This approach has been deliberately designed to lead working managers to effective results. That is what designed for busy people with other things to do means.

4. And finally, consultants bearing gifts are cause for caution.

I will not violate the trust I want to earn.

I encourage you to read about this straightforward and economical approach to open the door to new opportunities and fewer setbacks.

Tom

Introduction

Traveling through a Tough Neighborhood

blog.sms-ga.com, December 2012

What do you do when you find yourself traveling through a tough neighborhood at night? It is probably second nature that you become more alert and