|
It would be no surprise if people in the Philippines were unaware of
the Piper Alpha disaster in the UK North Sea which happened 20 years
ago on July 7, 1998. Piper Alpha was an offshore oil platform which
caught fire with a loss of life of 167 of the 220 people working on
the platform. A public enquiry was held under the leadership of Lord
Curran. One of the recommendations from the enquiry, which was very
big news in the UK and in the oil business at the time, was that all
major oil and gas exploration and development projects should have a
“safety case” prepared before moving to risky activities. In the
aftermath of the Piper Alpha disaster this was something taken,
rightly, very seriously. The importance of the safety case over the
last 20 years has grown so that now the production of a satisfactory
safety or HSE case (health safety and environment as it is otherwise
known) has become a target very nearly as important as building
whatever it is that has to be built or doing whatever it is that is
to be undertaken.
This brings to mind the case of Richard Reid who
was arrested after trying to ignite shoes containing explosives
aboard a trans-Atlantic plane bound for the United States in
December 2001. In the USA, alone there are about 10 million people
taking flights in every 24-hour period. Thanks to Mr. Reid, lots of
people taking their shoes off as a part of airport security
procedures and they will no doubt continue to have to put up with
this inconvenience for a time to come yet (I wonder what will be the
deciding factor in bringing a halt to this ridiculous procedure).
The question here is how far should the
international community go to avoid risks, not only to safety but
also business risks, credit risks and so on. Karl Marx said that
there is “no progress without risk”, and that is a truism; it
could be equally said that there is no part of life without
risk—risk is inherent in everything that we do or that we don’t
do. The sophistication of risk assessment and the inconvenience of
risk avoidance processes and procedures are about to bring things to
a halt in many areas. The fixation with risk in many cases allows
common sense to be dispensed with, or just not to figure at all.
Being old enough to be a cynic it may be said that many people (an
ever increasing number) make their living out of risk based
activities—security companies, accountants, banks—could that be
an element of the world wide fixation with the matter of risk ?
Entrepreneurs by definition take risks, in many
cases they don’t even know the risks that they are taking—one of
the reasons that they are prepared to start something new in the
first place; ignorance is often bliss. The bigger the venture the
less likely it is to take a risk proportionate to its size, i.e.,
one that could negatively impact its core business, or survival. We
progress therefore by smaller steps it seems. Desperation or lack of
any alternative opportunity is what often drives people to
entrepreneurial schemes but these people are often poorly educated
and certainly cannot afford the services of “big 5” accountants
and investment bankers to guide them on their way, nor do they have
much capital—they need good guidance, and that is in short
supply—perhaps the over 50’s who have been consigned to the
scrap heap of experienced capacity could lend a hand.
The more pompous members of society will say
that “of course we understand risk and we know how to manage
it!”—ha, sub prime mortgages.
In life as well as in business there are an
infinite number of risks, difficult to live without them, but please
let’s have a common sense approach to the subject rather than just
trying to avoid them all; if we do that we just come to a grinding
halt.
___
mawootton@gmail.com
|
