Went to an RMIA breakfast this morning titled “Adapt or miss the boat”. Great talk on managing complexity and how risk management is the solution – and the guest speaker, David Burgess of Inform Consulting isn’t even a full blown risk management consultant.  Read on for my three main takeaways from the session:

• • More and more professionals from all disciplines are getting the message about risk management. The world is getting a more complex place and stakeholders are becoming more demanding – particularly less tolerant of excuses as to why we didn’t see it coming. Risk management, done well, can deliver improved performance.

• • Our biggest sceptics remain the oldest hands and the hypo-entrepreneurs. The oldest hands got to where they are without risk management and the hypo-entrepreneurs don’t choose to recognise risk, they just see it as rice paper to be smashed through.

• The same old rules apply about winning over our greatest sceptics – you need to win their attention through finesse and win them over through delivering results. That is, help them realise something they never have before. Unveil the elephant in the room.