Quotes on Risk Management

Standards should not be forced down from above but rather set by the production workers themselves.

The first step is to measure whatever can easily be measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.

Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars.

The manager is a servant. His master is the institution he manages and his first responsibility must therefore be to it.

Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.

You cannot allow any of your people to avoid the brutal facts. If they start living in a dream world, it's going to be bad.

The question of whether or to what extent human activities are causing global warming is not a matter of ideology, let alone of belief. The issue is simply one of risk management.

Management by results - like driving a car by looking in rear view mirror.

It is far better to do the right thing wrong than to do the wrong thing right.

A problem never exists in isolation; it is surrounded by other problems in space and time. The more of the context of a problem that a scientist can comprehend, the greater are his chances of finding a truly adequate solution.

Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late.

The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication.

Outperforming the market with low volatility on a consistent basis is an impossibility. I outperformed the market for 30-odd years, but not with low volatility.

Maybe we should teach schoolchildren probability theory and investment risk management.

Managers don't like giving appraisals, and employees don't like getting them. Perhaps they're not liked because both parties suspect what the evidence has proved for decades: Traditional performance appraisals don't work.

Successful problem solving requires finding the right solution to the right problem. We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.

I would hope that American managers-indeed, managers worldwide-continue to appreciate what I have been saying almost from day one: that management is so much more than exercising rank and privilege, that it is much more than "making deals." Management affects people and their lives.

The thing is, continuity of strategic direction and continuous improvement in how you do things are absolutely consistent with each other. In fact, they're mutually reinforcing.

Indeed, better risk management may be the only truly necessary element of success in banking.

This awful catastrophe is not the end but the beginning. History does not end so. It is the way its chapters open.

One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose.