Much of human history is the result of unforeseen developments and decisions. This truism applies equally well to modern-day businesses wherein the key to success lies in being forever fully prepared to face such contingencies
Everyone faces many types of risks. The risks are not necessarily to life and limb, or even financial. They can be risks of relationship, of career, of the contingent and the unforeseen. I recall reading a semi-classical book entitled, The Hinge Factor, which demonstrated how many critical decisions in world history were taken by chance.
The Spanish Armada, during the medieval period, stood off the shores of Britain ready to attack the almost defenceless island at the crack of dawn. But the gods willed otherwise and as the historian says, “the wind blew”. There was a storm that was so big, it destroyed the Spanish Armada and the British island was saved.
In the battle of Panipat, Hemu was leading the Rajputs to victory against the Central Asian invaders when a stray arrow from nowhere hit him in the eye. Hemu lost his balance and, in the confusion of the moment, his horse turned around and dashed in the reverse direction. The almost victorious army interpreted this as Hemu calling for retreat. The invaders won the battle and the historian wrote, “A stray arrow decided the day”.
Similarly, the hordes of Hasdrubal had laid seige to the city of Rome. As a Carthaginian, Hasdrubal had promised that he would plough the streets of Rome and sow salt there. His dream seemed to be turning to reality when suddenly he decided to turn back.
There are many such instances. The ‘chance’ factor has decided many things. The atheist sees this as ‘chance’, the theist as ‘god’s little finger’. These are the mysteries of life which will possibly forever be inscrutable even as reams of papers are written by philosophers and thinkers trying to unravel them. As for the believers, this is simply the divine consciousness, of which we are all a part, having its way.
In the real world, management of risk remains a major factor to contend with. Hence, profiling risk-management becomes important. There can be no two ways about the managerial wisdom of doing so. The turbulence of the global socio-economic forces, the often capricious behaviour of the political class, the frailty and ingratitude of human nature, all have a tendency to produce risk when least expected.
The robust way of responding to this situation will always remain raising one’s contingency-coping potential, one’s resourcefulness and one’s preparedness to meet such exigencies. In fact, the entire business of insurance has spawned out of the human urge to prepare for risk.
Today, risk of fire, flood, natural and unnatural calamity, not to forget the risks of violence and more, have all become sources of business. Thus, profiling of risk is also a growing field. Indeed, the business of risk seems to be more worthwhile than the risks of business. This is not the best place to strike a judgment on this state of affairs.
However, one thing is obvious: Because of all these subterranean factors, the nature of decision-making and problem-solving has changed. The nature of management itself has changed. There was a time when a wider definition of one’s trade and occupation was considered state-of-the-art thinking. There is a story of the CEO of a rail-road company in the US who was asked to comment on the future of the rail-road business. The CEO quipped that he was not worried about the future because he was in the transport business. This story has done the rounds in many management classrooms as symbolic of the need of statesmanly vision on the part of the CEO, if his enterprise has to grow.
Alas! The story is now dated. Bringing a broadband perspective to vision does not seem to be good enough anymore. Today, the focus is on what capabilities one can bring to the business that one is in.