Risk matters

(Not the game by Milton Bradley)

I open with a passage from an email I sent senior staff a few years ago:

"I’m strongly committed to providing a safe and healthy workplace for employees.  I’m also committed to maintaining public access to our public buildings.  A perfectly safe environment simply does not exist.  Our job is to carefully the real risks against the real costs and make thoughtful decisions.  While we may have employees worried about a mass shooting or act a violence by a member of the public, the odds of that occurring are incredibly low.

Our responsibility—as department heads and professionals—is to build “the management case” for our decisions.  In my experience, people do a terrible job of assessing risk.  Psychology Today agrees.  (Bonus points to anyone who gets 100 percent right on the quiz.)   If you prefer something more academic, you might try “Overreaction to Fearsome Risks.”  Or for a middle ground, this blog page by Bruce Schneier."

Why do administrators--who generally advocate a calm, data-driven approach to evaluating risk--become speed bumps in legislative overreactions to unfounded fears?

There are some obvious answers.  Legislative bodies are more influenced by voter perceptions (valid or not) than by data.  If the vox populi demands things that make them feeler safer (rather than actual being safer), they are entitled because "democracy."  Failing to take action against a perceived threat--however unlikely--opens one up to the accusation of "not caring."  Perhaps the most obvious... people regardless of education and training are not good at evaluating risk.

Delving a bit deeper, there are more satisfying answers.  Every public policy--no matter how ill-advised--benefits someone.  For example, the United States spends over $7 billion a year on the TSA for security theater rather than actual security.  That sum goes to far more than rank-and-file employees.  Entire industries are built around monetizing fear.  This is less an issue in the private sector.  In corporate America, money spent on security is weighed against other potential investments.  The issue is far more pronounced in government where the few who benefit greatly speak more loudly than the many who pay slightly.  Perhaps the biggest obstacle to rational decision-making in the face of fear is the pervasive expectation for government to "do something," even when the most pragmatic approach is to do nothing.

After all, one might think, why does government exist save to do something?  And in no small measure that is why the hammer of government sees every problem as a nail... even when the "problem" is a barely visible crack in a beautiful stained glass window.  As public administrators, we cannot fall victim to the "what if" game, playing perpetual defense against threats less likely than winning the lottery.  We need to lead discussions on risk, not simply react to them.

Anthony Bourdain, RIP

According to the news this morning, Anthony Bourdain, 61, died in Paris today reportedly by his own hand.  He gave an interesting interview for Reason magazine in December 2016 one can find here.