Risk taxonomy: Difference between revisions

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{{a|negotiation|}}A fine occupation for the idle [[Mediocre lawyer|lawyer]]: Describing, and grouping in relation to each other, the entire catalog of risks that face your undertaking, as if unrealised legal hazards can be ranked, boxed and sorted like the phyla of butterflies, tits or thrush.  
{{a|negotiation|}}A fine occupation for the idle [[Mediocre lawyer|lawyer]]: Describing, and grouping in relation to each other, the entire catalog of risks that face your undertaking, as if unrealised legal hazards can be ranked, boxed and sorted like the phyla of butterflies, tits or thrush.  


This exercise can occupy as little — a breakout session on an away-day — or as much — the permanent task of a dedicated division in the department — of your firm's intellectual capacity as you have going spare: organisations that run to the bureaucratic<ref>You know who you are.</ref> may become so swooned by this notion that they can find little time to do anything else. For how can one asses the risks of a transaction if one doesn't know from which family of what genus in what species it hails?
This exercise can occupy as little — a breakout session on an away-day — or as much — the permanent task of a dedicated division in the department — of your firm's intellectual capacity as you have going spare: organisations that run to the bureaucratic<ref>''You'' know who you are.</ref> may become so swooned by this notion that they can find little time to do anything else. For how can one asses the risks of a transaction if one doesn't know from which family of what genus in what species it hails?


===The problem with risk taxonomies===
===The problem with risk taxonomies===
{{JC}} has ''two'' reservations about risk taxonomies:
{{JC}} has ''two'' reservations about risk taxonomies:
====The false comfort blanket====
====The false comfort blanket====
Any [[taxonomy]], like a map, can only document the territory you ''know'', have raked over, surveyed and measured. ''Stables from which the horse has bolted'', so to say. This is of a piece with the common lawyer’s usual mode of reasoning, the [[doctrine of precedent]], whose organising principle is to move ''forward'' by exclusive reference to what lies ''behind''. This is all very well in times of plenty, when the tide is rising, all boats are floating and all is well in the world. Here the world behaves according to the narrative we have supplied it — we are in a period of [[normal science]]. But by the same token the acute risks are in abeyance. Aslan is not on the move. Even if you left the door open, the horse has a nosebag full of hay and is’t going anywhere.
Any [[taxonomy]], like a map, can only document the territory you ''know'', have raked over, surveyed and measured. ''Stables from which the horse has bolted'', so to say. This is of a piece with the [[Mediocre lawyer|common lawyer]]’s usual mode of reasoning, the [[doctrine of precedent]], whose organising principle is to move ''forward'' by exclusive reference to what lies ''behind''. This is all very well in times of plenty, when the tide is rising, all boats are floating, those swimming nude are safely concealed from the neck down and all is well in the world. Here, the world behaves according to the narrative we have supplied it — we are in a period of [[normal science]]”<ref>{{Author|Thomas Kuhn}}, {{br|The Structure of Scientific Revolutions}}. If you take ''one'' book recommendation from the {{tag|JC}}, make it this one. Or {{br|The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind}}.</ref>. But by the same token, the acute risks are in abeyance. Aslan is ''not'' on the move. Even if you left the door open, the horse has a nosebag full of hay and is’t going anywhere.


But what happens when our carefully constructed narrative falls apart? Those stressed scenarios in which, as the old saw has it, I'll be gone, you’ll be gone, and [[black swan]]s will be angrily flapping about. Then, your paradigm has failed. People around you are losing their heads and blaming it on you and your stupid [[taxonomy]], ''which suddenly isn’t working''.  
But what happens when our carefully constructed narrative falls apart? Those stressed scenarios in which, as the old saw has it, {{maxim|I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone}}, and [[black swan]]s will be angrily flapping about. Then, your [[paradigm]] has failed. People around you are losing their heads and blaming it on you and your stupid [[taxonomy]], ''which suddenly isn’t working''.  


====It’s a [[narrative]]====
====It’s a [[narrative]]====