Insights from Outside the Bubble: The Minefield

By Detlef Palm

The greatest risk to mankind, as we have come to learn, is Covid-19 and its mutants. Scientists work tirelessly to reduce the risk of more people dying prematurely from the virus. Politicians struggle for survival. We do what we think is best. The fight against Covid-19 is the greatest collective risk management effort of our civilization; it requires everyone to be part of it.

Let me recall some other risks that humankind managed to manage. The risk of dying from cold was mitigated by taming fire. Seatbelts and speed limits reduce the risk of getting injured in a car crash. Clocks reduce the risk of missing an appointment or wasting time at the bus stop. When it is cloudy, you take the umbrella to reduce the risk of getting wet. The risk of dying of boredom is mitigated through television, and the risk of lonesomeness is allayed through social media, including the XUNICEF network of former UNICEF staff.

Risks lurk around every corner, and our brain is constantly busy figuring out whether to take a risk or to avoid it. Most often we don’t consciously think about it; we don’t enumerate risks or write reports about them. Yet, I sympathize with a worldview according to which much of the progress in human history comes about from trying to manage some risk or deal with uncertainty.

In the UNICEF bubble, programme planners worry about droughts or political change. Those seeking to enlist partners could end up being the most difficult partner for everyone else. Negotiators may promise too much, even if they do not worry. Strategists may fall prey to group think or overestimate capacities to reach lofty goals. Evaluators may not assess things that matter, and nobody may want to learn that lesson. Talent managers may inadvertently hire the windbag. Offices may raise more money than they can spend. Policy advisors may be swayed by their Weltanschauung instead by facts. Data transparently shared, or not being shared, may be subject to misinterpretation. And while our financial rules and fraud policies might be good enough to ensure that not a penny will go missing, we may be wasting millions by financing projects with little prospect for lasting change.

As an attentive reader, you may have noticed different sources of risk to our work:

We don’t know what calamity the world is going to throw at us tomorrow. We cannot prevent a tsunami or civil strife. We can only help to mitigate the consequences during and after the event. Thankfully, in the overall scheme of things, external disaster are comparatively rare.

General uncertainty. We may not know which party is going to win the next election in our host country, or how the local currency will trade against the Dollar, who will be appointed to be your new boss, or onto which remote island the organization is going to send us next. None of these are disasters, but we have to continue to make our own plans under our own assumptions.

And then there are risks of our own making, by wrongly judging a situation or taking foolish decisions. Read D. Kahneman: Thinking slow, thinking fast to realize how often you fool yourself. Decisions always imply a choice; at the minimum a choice between leaving everything as it is, or doing something different. Go with the flow or brush against the grain. A good decision weighs the consequences, possible damages and benefits of the alternatives, according to the best knowledge we have at the time.

Seen through the lenses of risk, you walk on a minefield not only when you work in a war zone, but when you enter your office, zoom in for a meeting, approve something in VISION, sign that letter, issue that instruction, appraise your underlings or your boss, object to somebody’s view, or keep your mouth shut.

In the distant past, and sometimes today, people consult psychics to forecast events and seek help in managing their lives and taking important decisions. The high priestess presiding over the Oracle at Delphi obtained her oracular powers because of the presence of hallucinogenic vapours in her chambers. But you don’t need to get stoned to deal with uncertainty. The high priestess’ actual sayings were mostly nebulous gibberish. The attendant priests, who were the best-informed people in ancient Greece, provided an interpretation based on what they knew, and more often than not provided advice vague enough to point in no particular direction.

Mankind has gotten much better at this now: science helps us to predict weather; and records of past events allow to make conclusion about what may happen in the future. UNICEF has plenty of corporate knowledge about what is likely to add value and lead to success, or what may not work because it has been tried many times. We just need to put it use.

👉  We ought to have a balanced, pragmatic and level-headed understanding that risks lurk everywhere; and make better use of UNICEF’s accumulated knowledge and experience

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