Here’s a link to a article on risk. This Taleb guy is mad about Wall St bankers and their failure to understand risk.
The article is long and technical. But many years ago I studied, and sometimes passed, statistics papers at university. So I persevered. If you’re not so inclined, my take-out was as follows:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb08/taleb08_index.html
In situations where the pay-off is complex and the future highly uncertain – that’s a lot of life these days. Taleb says that the best strategy is to avoid optimisation, and love redundancy.
Leadership could be an example of a complex pay-off with a highly uncertain future. How would a leader create redundancy?
One way is to create other leaders around them. To ‘let go’ of the need to be the leader, and be a leader. To see and encourage in others the ability to dream, learn, do and become more. I heard someone once suggest that every manager should ask his direct reports – “is there any part of my job you would like to do?” – then give them that job. A simple thing to do, with two pay-offs.
Firstly it makes getting the job done easier. Secondly, it frees you to focus on bigger and more stimulating challenges.
Have that conversation today!
