Page 74 - IRMSA Risk Report 2021

2. BUSINESS BEFORE RISK

Being or becoming an effective risk management professional is not something you need to train for before taking on this sort of
role. Although academic and training programs can assist you, many of the nuts and bolts of the risk management process can
be learned and developed as you perform the role. However, it is preferable that you understand business and, if possible, the
business of your business before you take on a risk management role.

3. CLIENT FOCUS
For risk management to deliver strategic value and be viewed as more than a compliance exercise, executive engagement and
championing of risk management is required. To achieve this engagement, relationships and people skills play the pivotal role
between success and failure. The focus of risk professionals must be on bringing a risk perspective to decisions and challenges
facing the organisation. They must focus on client needs and wants. Their role is to find solutions to problems and not to push their
preferred method or process.

Risk professionals must emphasise the experience business will have, and the outcome they will achieve if they engage you. In
doing so the risk professional must balance their duty towards the whole organisation – a hat that they should always be wearing
– with their service to the specific business client. The reason for this is that risk management, as the second “independent” line
of assurance, plays an important role in the governance of risk and in combined assurance. The risk professional should never be
“captured” by the client. It is a hard act to perform, but one that a risk professional must develop the competence and confidence
to perform seamlessly.

4. INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

Technical skills are only one piece of the puzzle. Risk management professionals must possess and apply other soft or interpersonal
skills to make risk management a valuable tool for helping the organisation succeed. For example, risk professionals need to be
skilled at listening to and reading people.

No person naturally possesses all the soft skills. A person may be strong in one area but struggle in another. Your listening skills may
be great, but you may freeze up when speaking in front of others. You may be confident speaking to peers but unable to conduct
an unstructured, flowing interview with senior executives.

By making the effort to identify the areas in which you need improvement and taking firm steps to develop and enhance these
skills, you will enable risk management in your organisation to become what it is designed to be – a tool for ensuring executives are
making informed decisions and taking the right amount – and type – of risk in the pursuit of strategic objectives. By undergoing this
process, you will transform yourself into a well-rounded, competent, confident, and more valuable risk professional.

Risk professionals should speak to the interests of the
client and speak the language of business. They should
speak about risk, and measure risk, in terms of business-
performance metrics. Risk terms like ‘impact’, ‘likelihood’,
‘velocity’, or ‘vulnerability’ should be replaced with ‘net

present value’, ‘profit’, ‘return on sales’, or whatever other
key performance indicators the organisation is using. A
risk professional’s attention should be focused on specific
business problems and what is needed to help the
organisation achieve a desired result. Risk professionals
must show that they understand their client’s situation,
problems, and aspirations.

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