Risk taxonomy: Difference between revisions

Risk taxonomy (view source)

Revision as of 11:39, 16 September 2019

285 bytes added , 16 September 2019

no edit summary

Amwelladmin

Bureaucrats, Interface administrators, Administrators

82,891

edits

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 ====It’s a [[narrative]]====
-Any [[taxonomy]] is a [[narrative]]. Like any hierarchical organising system, a [[taxonomy]] commits you to ''one'' way of looking at the world, ''at the expense of all others''. Now this a necessary evil when it comes to concrete, physical things, like books: the [[Dewey decimal system]] is a single hierarchy — a ''[[narrative]]'' — by necessity: a physical thing cannot be in two places at once. So the curator of a library — libraries: remember them? — must settle on a single taxonomy (subject matter, not author, or title, or publisher) and, for better or worse, stick to it. Because one physical book can’t be in two places at once.
+Any [[taxonomy]] is a [[narrative]]. Like any hierarchical organising system, a [[taxonomy]] commits you to ''one'' way of looking at the world, ''at the expense of all others''. Now this a necessary evil when it comes to concrete, physical things, like books. The curator of a collection of physical objects, like a library — libraries: remember them? — must settle on a single taxonomy and, for better or worse, stick to it, even if there is a feasible alternative means of organising the collection. The [[Dewey decimal system]] is that single hierarchy — a ''[[narrative]]'' — by necessity. It does not carve nature at its joints, and leads to odd discontinuities <ref>“Logic” is nowhere near “mathematics”, for example.</ref> but it is better than nothing: the same book can’t be in two places at once, and you have to put it ''somewhere''.
-But ''legal'' risks ''aren’t'' physical things. They aren’t concrete. They are the must ''un''concrete things imaginable. They’re amorphous, will-o’-the-wisp, [[black swan]]s: they [[emergent|emerge]], coagulating in mid air like suffocating ectoplasms, from ''nowhere''. These are obstreporous phantoms, silently incubating in harmless, dusty corners so [[tedious|dreary]] we can scarcely bring ourselves to even pay them attention.<ref>Like the BBA’s process for setting the sleepy old [[London Inter Bank Offered Rate]]. Anyone [https://www.google.com/search?&q=libor+%22mundane%22+%22boring%22 remember that old yawnfest]?</ref>
+But ''legal'' risks ''aren’t like books''. They aren’t physical things. They aren’t concrete. They are ''un''concrete. They’re amorphous, will-o’-the-wisp, [[black swan]]s: they [[emergent|emerge]], coagulating in mid air like suffocating ectoplasms, from ''nowhere''. They are obstreperous phantoms, silently incubating in harmless, dusty corners so [[tedious|dreary]] we can scarcely bring ourselves to even pay them attention until, to our horror, we see it is too late.<ref>Like the BBA’s process for setting the sleepy old [[London Inter Bank Offered Rate]]. Anyone [https://www.google.com/search?&q=libor+%22mundane%22+%22boring%22 remember that old yawnfest]?</ref>
-In the last twenty years the global finance industry has faced up to some proper, existential threats. It has [[Jenseits von Gut und Böse|looked long into the abyss]]. [[LTCM]]. [[LIBOR]]. [[Madoff]]. [[Dotcom]]. [[Lehman]]. ''None of these epochal shit-shows registered more than a faint pulse in the frame of consciousness of the most paranoid [[risk controller]] '''until they happened'''''.
+In the last twenty years the global finance industry has faced some proper, existential threats. It has [[Jenseits von Gut und Böse|looked long into the abyss]]. [[LTCM]]. [[LIBOR]]. [[Madoff]]. [[Dotcom]]. [[Lehman]]. ''None of these epochal shit-shows registered more than a faint pulse in the frame of consciousness of the most paranoid [[risk controller]] '''until they happened'''''.
 Nor will the next one. Risks happen “when” everyone is looking in another, wrong, direction. '''Risks happen ''because'' everyone is looking in another, wrong direction'''. So why will everyone be looking in another, wrong direction?  BECAUSE THEIR [[risk taxonomy|RISK TAXONOMY]] IS TELLING THEM TO. Their [[risk taxonomy]] ''is'' that other, wrong direction.
-In this way, the [[risk taxonomy]], itself, ''is'' the risk. New risks will, by definition, inhibit the seams, cracks and weak joints of your present narrative — they will, post fact, prompt you to change your [[narrative]]. They will prompt you to build a new stable around the space where the horse ''you didn’t even know was there'' turns out to have been standing, before it bolted.
+In this way, the [[risk taxonomy]], itself, ''is'' the risk. New risks will, by definition, inhibit the seams, cracks and weak joints of your present narrative — they will prompt you, after the fact, to change your [[narrative]]. They will prompt you to build a new stable around the space where the horse ''you didn’t even know was there'' turns out to have been standing, before it bolted.
-What to do? Sagely, the [[general counsel]] will mandate action to defend against this newly identified risk. “We must”, she will solemnly say, revisit our [[service catalog]]. We shall have a new steering committee to oversee that. And an operating committee to implement it. And with sound governance, we shall build a new, stronger, better, [[risk taxonomy]].
+What to do? Sagely, the [[general counsel]] will mandate action to defend against this newly identified risk. “We must”, she will solemnly say, revisit our [[service catalog]]. We shall have a new [[steering committee]] to oversee that. And an [[operating committee]] to implement it. And with that unimpeachably sound governance, ''we shall build a new, stronger, better, [[risk taxonomy]]''.
 {{seealso}}