Agility FinanceTech: Smarter Infrastructure & Technology Management for the New FS Organization. Sponsored by IBM.

Posted by Brian Barnier, ValueBridge Advisors

One day I heard dreadful news. A swimmer had drown in a swimming pool in our town. At the time, I was a director of a non-profit that managed swimming pools. Was it our pool? Soon the news came in that it was not one of ours. As a former lifeguard, I still thought “how could this have happened?” and “What could have been done to prevent it?” Soon the news media, visitors and regulators were asking the same questions. To this day, each time I hear of a death in the water I ask myself the same questions. In this article, we’ll look at just three valuable lessons to learn from lifeguards.

Watching too much television will give you a distorted view of a lifeguard.  No, I don’t just mean the swimsuit part.  On television action shows viewers see, well, action.  The lifeguard’s dive in to retrieve the victim is what gives energy to the show.   The point of the real-world life guard is to stay out of the water, to avoid the emergency.  Ready response is crucial when every second counts.  Being ready to respond also requires training in how to handle the victim, put them on a back-boards and perform CPR and other techniques.  Of course, this training must be continually practiced to keep people ready to act. Certainly, this training includes knowing which actions to take in response to the type of problem.  Without this, the victim’s chance of survival is slim.

In risk management, a best practice is understanding the process involved and where the variability lies.  This helps the risk leader focus attention on those practices more likely to improve outcomes.  In  financial services, consider checks being processed by people.  Here, the input (check) is fairly standardized, but there can be quite a bit of variability in the processing done by the people.  Now consider a person being checked for blood pressure or a property & casualty sales person providing a homeowners’ insurance quote.  In both of these cases the inputs (people and their needs) can vary widely, but the process applied is quite standard. 

In the water safety process, there is an extensive set of prevention steps and waterfront rules.  There are also well-practiced response rules.  The high variability item is the behavior of the people.  This is not unlike retail product purchase analysis or military combat.   This means the emphasis is on being aware of the rapidly changing situation to hopefully prevent and at least respond quickly.  

This “situational awareness” is the unifying point in our three lessons that ops risk managers can learn from lifeguards.

1. Understand the full range of threats.   the swimmer and lifeguard each face a wide range of threats.  While some threats vary by water setting (e.g., pool, water park or water front (lake or ocean), some are similar across settings.  The lifeguard needs to be aware of the potential of relatively little injuries (skinned knee on pool deck) to medium (stepping on broken glass in the water) to serious (head & neck injury in water do to inappropriate diving or rough activity between swimmers).   It would be foolish to concentrate excessively on just one type of injury.  This is especially the case given the potential for regulatory or reputation problems from a string of minor injuries. People have an expectation of safety, especially parents dropping off kids.  To help address this, waterfronts group swimmers by skill level or activity (lap swimming, open swim, diving, water basketball and such).  Note these categories are by what is actually happening, not some representation of what is happening.  Lifeguards test the new kids actual swimming ability, not just see what a swim class certificate says.

2. Be where you can see.  To assess the range of threats, lifeguards need to be able to see their assigned patrol space.  To make this easier lifeguards use everything from glare-reducing sun glasses to observation chairs to row boats and surf boards.  They need to be where they can both see and, if needed, quickly take action. This more difficult in lakes and surf where silt makes it difficult or impossible to see that water.  When it is difficult to see, lifeguards use rules like “buddy checks” every few minutes to make sure each swimmer knows where their buddy is and is safe.  Note this is NOT like the self-assessments that are based on how “I think I am.”  The buddy check is also not subject to the errors or control design or operational quality.  Rather this is an ACTUAL assessment of safety.  Buddy checks also teach swimmers to become more aware of their partners in their “business process.”  Wouldn’t it have been nice to have seen the end to end mortgage lending process?

3. Blood isn’t the best indicator.  In banking we debate heat maps, ratings, risk indicators and related questions.   Lifeguards also have a many check lists provided by lifeguard certifying groups, their employers and regulators.   Lifeguards (at least the experienced ones) have a much more direct view of both threat and impact.  In impact, they know that blood isn’t the best indicator.  Skinned knees from cement pool decks or forehead cuts from little kids hitting picnic tables can generate lots of blood (especially when thinned out by water).  Yet, those aren’t nearly as serious as head injuries from diving boards or colliding basket ball players.  In banking we tend to focus on the last problem and miss the next problem. In lifeguarding, this can be fatal.

In summary, all three of these lessons on situational awareness apply directly to financial services – whether frauds, technology failures or business process gaps.  Like my earlier columns on lessons learned from other industries such as oil & gas, they all point out that we have much to learn to make our lives easier in financial services. Take time today to apply just these three lessons from lifeguards. 

What do you think?  Are you already applying some of these approaches?  If so, good for you!  Why do you think others struggle to get to where you are?  If you are not using these lessons, is it because you were unaware or is there some hurdle you are facing?  Share your thoughts and post a comment. If you would like to reply to me personally or ask a question, feel free to do so at briangbarnier @  gmail.com (remove the spaces).

Best,

Brian

P.S.  Will you or a colleague be at the ISACA International Conference in Los Angeles?  If so, look me up, I’ll be teaching three sessions there.

About the author:  Brian Barnier, CGEIT, is an advisor, teacher, writer and researcher on risk-return value management.  He teaches CPE classes and speaks at a range of conferences, writes for business and technology publications, and serves on multiple industry practices committees regarding risk, business process and IT value.  He has worked in a range of industries and, in doing so, helps cross-pollinate his clients with the best of the best in risk management.