Seeing risk as an opportunity

I'm sitting in the Lufthansa business class lounge, preparing to return home, after spending a few days in Budapest, Hungary, where we held our 51st meeting of The Performance Measurement Forum. The reading material includes the WSJ's European edition weekend edition, which doesn't "hold a candle" to the U.S. version, but at least provides me something to read. I was struck by a Dow Jones advertisement, with the heading "Risk is also an opportunity." One might think such a statement unnecessary, as one can't achieve rewards without taking some risk. Its opening sentence, "Protect your business from risk without hindering growth," does seem like a stretch, however. But perhaps I need to spend some time pursuing their website.

One of our presenters this week was Harry Kat, who has written for The Journal of Performance Measurement(R), as well as other publications. Harry's presentation on risk was interesting in its simplicity, and I'll have more to say about it in the coming days.

Back to the WSJ advertisement. Over the years I've collected a few such ads, as they can be quite interesting in how they portray risk. We rarely see anything addressing the flip side (performance, which some say, with risk are the two sides of the same coin). And yet risk continues to be quite a challenge, in understanding, measuring, and managing it. More to follow.