In this episode of Beneficial Intelligence, I discuss risk aversion. The U.S. has stopped distributing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. It has been given to more than 7 million people, and there have been six reported cases of blood clotting. That is not risk management, that is risk aversion.
There is a classic short story from 1911 by Stephen Leacock called “The Man in Asbestos.” In it, the narrator travels to the future to find a drab and risk-averse society where aging has been eliminated together with all disease. People can only die from accidents, which is why everybody wears fire-resistant asbestos clothes, railroads and cars are outlawed, and society becomes completely stagnant.
We are moving in that direction. Large organizations have departments of innovation prevention, often called compliance, risk management, or QA. It takes leadership to look at the larger benefit and overrule their objections Smaller organizations can instead spend their leadership time on innovation and growth.
As an IT leader, it is your job to make sure your organization doesn’t get paralyzed by risk aversion.