managing risk at big school

Managing Risk at Big School

Professor Edward P. Borodzicz

Portsmouth Business School

About me! • Trained as Anthropologist and Psychologist.• Began studies looking at human behaviour in

crisis and disasters.• Designed and Evaluated Simulation Exercises

for Emergency Services in UK, France and China.

• Set up two MSc’s at Leicester and Southampton Universities.

• Interested in the Design and Evaluation of Crisis Management Training for Business Risk ‘Continuity’ Games.

The Context

• More people

• Inter-connectivity

• Different ways of living

• Greater expectation of a risk free environment

• Regulation, Business Continuity and Hefce

A Brief History of Risk

• Risk: As old as the oldest trade?

• Ancient philosophers of East and West • Traditional/primitive societies - Oracles • Documented among academics for over a Century• (Todhunter, 1865) • ‘Speculative Risk’ and Capitalism

Risk and Social Sciences•Risk and Irrationality

•Systemic Failure

•Homeostatic Risks

Some Theoretical Perspectives 1 Psychology

• Decision making theorists question the notion of human rationality.

 • Humans regularly make irrational choices on a regular

basis, even when future events have a known probability.

• Dispositional factors can be found to mediate risk taking in experimental settings.

 • It is difficult to measure the difference in people’s

behaviour in real and simulated risk situations.

Some Theoretical Perspectives 2Systems Theory

• Theory originates from the work of Von Bertalanffy in the 1920’s.

 • Von Bertalanffy looked at Organic Systems.  • Outwardly variant systems display common internal

similarities. • Theory has been applied in a number of diverse contexts.

• Interest from Theorists Studying Disaster Causation and Management

Some Theoretical Perspectives 2Systems Theory

• Perrow's Normal Accident Theory

• Turners Model

• Isomorphic Learning

• The Resident Pathogen Metaphor

• High Reliability Systems

Some Theoretical Perspectives 3 Risk Homeostasis

• Probability of risk is always 1 • Road safety • Child proof bottle tops! • Legislation and regulation should be considered in its

Meaningful Context  • Fix a steel spike to the steering wheel

A Summary of Contemporary Risk

• Risk means different things to different people in different contexts.

• It is familiar risks that cause the most problems

• There is an apparent irrationality in the way people perceive risks

• It is more difficult to distinguish between pure and speculative risk for insurance purposes.

• The Organisation is the risk!

Risk Strategies

• Risk Identification

registers and matrixes

• Risk Avoidance

• Transfer

• Risk Retention

• Risk Reduction

Human Issues

• Whistleblowers

• Reputation Risk

• Poor HRM

Threats to Universities 1

• Fire and Flood • Fraud and embezzlement • System failures (human and technical) • Litigation Culture (Both students and staff) • Nutters • Whistleblowers • Corporate Manslaughter

Threats to Universities 2

• Terrorism

• Rapid Fluctuation in World Markets • Secrecy • Compartmentalised approach to risk management • Trial by committee • Dealing with Impossible Workloads

Some (Anonymous!) Case Studies

• The Visiting Research fellow from Hell • The Naughty Professor • Nasty Problem with the computer  • The VC’s travel arrangements

• Racing • Pedro de Lanuza!

High Principles at Big School!

• Reasons Pathogenic Model

• Schizophrenia

At Departmental Levels

1. Tribunals/grievance procedures by teaching and research staff over discrimination

2. Academic staff turnover3. High levels of sickness/absence/stress4. Administrative staff turnover5. High number of appeals or cases of litigation brought

by students6. Poor levels of course completions7. High number of internal Staff PhD’s by publication.8. Low number of PhD’s qualifications from other

universities.

At Departmental Levels

9. Teaching staff administering their own course evaluations or no course evaluations

10. Reports of a poor working culture11.High outputs of research despite poor level of research income or

vice versa!12.Lack of transparent processes for distributing travel and conference

budgets.13. Checking that minuted meetings were actually attended14 Failure to conduct exit interviews for staff independently of the

department15. Failure to conduct exit interviews for students administered

independently of the department16. High sickness/stress/grievance levels reported after QAA

examinations

At faculty levels:

1. Low usage of Whistle-blowing procedures despite high numbers of the above

2. Health and Safety complaints3. A failure to resolve grievance procedures by teaching and research

staff without recourse to Unions or outside representation.4. A failure to resolve grievance procedures without at least a threat

of litigation.5. Litigation6. Failure to check staff CV’s systematically - do these relate to

verifiable qualifications.7.Failure to check student CV’s systematically - do these relate to

verifiable qualifications.8. Transparency distributions of research funding within faculty.9. Distribution of sabbaticals

If all risks cannot be managed, then we need to know how to respond ?

• Generic Crisis Training

• Risk Management through Joined up thinking!

Crisis Management

• Understand event quality

• Improve communication

• Be prepared to break rules

• Become your own terrorist!

Resilience = understand and manage crises

Some tips for good simulation practice

• First, simulations should display an external simplicity which masks their internal complexity.

• Second, games should have some theoretical underpinning. Simulations should be designed with some clear purpose.

• Third, games should contain 'an element of surprise'.

• Fourth, the social structure of the group of players may conflict too strongly with the desired power structure in the game.

Some tips for good simulation practice

• First, simulations should display an external simplicity which masks their internal complexity.

• Second, games should have some theoretical underpinning. Simulations should be designed with some clear purpose.

• Third, games should contain 'an element of surprise'.

• Fourth, the social structure of the group of players may conflict too strongly with the desired power structure in the game.

Some tips for good simulation practice

• Fifth, in management training, 'verisimilitude' is valued more highly than realism.

• Sixth, there is a difference between running and merely administering a game.

• Seventh, games are culture sensitive.

• Eighth, all simulation games will display an emotional impact.