Risk management involves three key steps: 1) identifying potential risks, 2) assessing the likelihood and impact of those risks, and 3) taking actions to eliminate, mitigate, transfer, or accept the risks. It is important because risks are everywhere and failures to properly manage risks can lead to bad or catastrophic outcomes. However, humans are often poor at objectively assessing risks due to cognitive biases that cause us to misremember outcomes and misunderstand probabilities. Proper risk management requires accurately evaluating both the likelihood and consequences of potential risks.

1. Risk Management 101
What is Risk Management?
Why Should You Care?
What Should You be Doing?

2. What Is Risk?
There are many, even conflicting, terms and
definitions of Risk:
danger possibility peril
chance exposure
jeopardy consequence hazard
menace threat
gamble OPPORTUNITY

3. Why Should You Care?
• Everyone faces risks
• Risks are everywhere
• Even when recognized, risks are often poorly
understood
• Bad – even catastrophic – things happen when
Risks are not managed!

5. Why Are Risks Misunderstood?
• We easily succumb to selective validation—the
tendency to remember only positive correlations and
forget the far more numerous misses.
– A common ploy used by psychics (often called the Jeanne
Dixon effect) is to make dozens of predictions to increase
the odds that one will hit. When one comes true, the
psychic counts on us to conveniently forget the 99% that
were way off.
– In investing -- and gambling -- most people remember
their big win, and forget the many losses that more than
offset it
– Potentially bad outcomes are weighted much more heavily
than mildly bad ones – even when the likelihoods are very
different

6. Personal Risk Assessment
Mile-for-mile and trip-for-trip air travel is at
least 1,000 times safer than driving …

7. Personal Risk Assessment 2
… but an air crash seems much more likely to be
fatal.

8. Managing Risks
Regardless of definitions, there are 3 agreed
steps to manage risks:
1. Identify potential risks
2. Assess/measure the threat
3. Eliminate, mitigate, transfer or accept

9. Basic Risk Management Process
Identify
Risks and
exposures
Evaluate
loss potential
and probability
Select & Implement
Management Method

10. IDENTIFYING RISKS
Some People are Lucky

11. Some People Not So Much

12. Poo Happens!

13. Assessing Risks
• Few people understand either the probability
of an event or the consequences
• So … most people either underestimate the
likelihood of improbable events …
• Or they overestimate the consequences of
everyday risks …

14. What Is The Likelihood?

15. What Is The Consequence?

16. • Humans have a poor innate grasp of probability
– For example, what are the odds of two people sharing the
same birthday in a room containing twenty three people?
Many think it must be one in thirty or more. Surprisingly to
most people, it is only one in two.
– There's a 100 percent chance of an earthquake today
somewhere in the world!

17. • Few understand the laws regarding truly large
numbers.
– Many people believe in the Gambler's Fallacy, thinking
that if a tossed coin ends up “tails” an inordinate number
of times in 100 trials, then “heads” is bound to come up
more often in 100 subsequent trials to “even up” the score
and return to a 50-50 distribution.
– But – the odds of tossing “tails” is still 50% each time; the
coin has no “memory” of what happened previously.
• A widely accepted law of statistics states that with a
large enough sample size, even the extremely unlikely
becomes probable, and therefore any outrageous
thing is bound to happen eventually – even 100
“tails” in a row!

18. Are You Safe?
Our sense of "safe" is often distorted by media coverage (or the
lack of it) and distance:
– The disappearance of Natalee Holloway gained worldwide attention
and caused a sharp decline in visitors to Aruba, even though it is the
safest island in the Caribbean – fewer than 1 murder annually.
– Your chances of being a victim of foul play are considerably greater in
Las Vegas (more than 1,000 murders annually) than Aruba, yet no one
is canceling their trip to Las Vegas because of safety.
Health issues and terrorism grab the headlines but crime and
accidents pose far greater risks for travelers.
– In 2003 48 people died of SARS in Toronto and all of those deaths were
connected to hospitals. But fear caused hotel occupancy rates to
plummet from 87% to 13%.
– 80 people died in traffic accidents in Toronto in 2003; but, once again,
no one cancelled a Toronto trip for fear of dying in a traffic accident.

19. Road Trip Risks
What we think…. The usual reality..

20. Some Probabilities of Mortality
• Die from Heart Disease 1 in 280
• Die of Cancer 1 in 500
• Die in Car wreck 1 in 6,000
• Die by Homicide 1 in 10,000
• Die of AIDS 1 in 11,000
• Die of Tuberculosis 1 in 200,000
• Killed by lightning 1 in 1.4 million
• Killed by flood or tornado 1 in 2 million
• Killed in Hurricane 1 in 6 million
• Die in commercial plane crash 1 in 10 million
You are at least 1,000 times more likely to be killed on the
way to the airport than to die during the flight

21. Ineffective Risk Management

22. The Banks Still Haven’t Figured It Out
After the “meltdown” of 2008, a reasonable person
might assume that surviving banks and brokerages
would institute better risk management procedures
and controls. Far from it! Within the past 2 years …
• UBS wrote off at least $5 Billion of losses from
mortgage-related debt and derivatives after 2008
• AND was stung for another $2+ Billion by a junior
trader who successfully concealed his bad trades
for more than 2 years.

23. And Still Haven’t …
• MF Global, the third largest commodity
broker/dealer in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy
as a result of excessive bets on Euro Zone
Sovereign bonds.
• $593M of customer funds were apparently
illegally co-mingled with the firm’s funds and
were officially “missing”.
• The bankruptcy is expected to be the 8th
largest in U.S. history.

24. What Should You be Doing?
Investigate!
1. Read the fine print!
2. Identify and accurately assess the risks in
critical or stressful situations.
– You are about 10,000 times more likely to have
your car stolen, than to win a lottery

25. And …
Be Skeptical!
3. Get it in writing
4. If you don’t understand an investment or
transaction, don’t make it until you do.
5. Insure against catastrophe.

26. • Failure to understand and act appropriately
can be very costly!
• Knowledge is protection!

27. Answer These Key Questions

28. Why Are You Doing Whatever It Is?

29. Are You In The Right Place?

30. At The Right Time?

31. With The Right Tools?

32. To Avoid Disaster?

33. Or Not?