Of course prevention is better than cure, but isn't it difficult enough determining the root cause(s) of and eradicating problems that have already occurred, never mind trying to pre-empt those that have not.
The recent London bombings lead me to consider the issue of ‘preventive action' - why? Because now after the event the government are proposing a range of new anti-terrorism legislation in order to ‘prevent' (hopefully) a reoccurrence. A very difficult task.
http://news.bbc.co.u...ics/4692515.stm
But do we really have to make a mistake once (at the very least) before we do enough to stop it from happening?
In this case the answer is probably yes as some of the proposed new anti-terrorism laws will undoubtedly impinge on a number of citizens civil liberties and obviously it would have been much more difficult (or impossible) to get cross-party and public support for the legislation pre 07/07.
Organisations are just micro cultures of wider society; if we propose to implement a change within our organisation, for example ‘a procedure change' to prevent a potential problem (that has never previously occurred) - wouldn't there be some resistance? People just tend not to like change. Unless they can understand the need for change and clearly see the benefits of change, resistance to change is much more likely to be encountered. I believe Risk Assessment is a tool for helping to forge the link between need and benefit, which can bring meaning to the individual and help to reduce their natural resistance to change.
Isn't it better to consider carefully the risks today and develop sensible, measured contingency plans, rather than wait until the heat of battle?
We all carry out personal risk assessments when considering moving house, changing jobs, having children, an affair of the heart or even another pint of beer - perhaps we wouldn't draw it up into a chart, we may be unaware we are doing it, but we carry out risk assessments of some sort every day.
Despite my waffling hopefully you can see the importance of risk assessment as an essential tool in the problem solving process for any number of situations.
Implementing a corrective action that prevents a problem from reoccurring is good; implementing a preventive action for a wisely predicted problem is great!
Regards,
Simon
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