Because I said so!
What raising children can teach us about threat assessment and forecasting in complex environments.
Threat assessment and risk analysis are essential tools in modern management. Businesses, insurance providers, and emergency managers all need to be able to accurately identify and quantify risks. This allows for the proper allocation of resources and capital, while minimizing the potential for catastrophic failure (hopefully). The field of risk analysis has been under some scrutiny recently, due to multiple massive failures. Enron, 9/11 intelligence failures, and a multitude of businesses and government agencies missing the warning signs of the 2008 financial crisis are all given as examples of risk analysis principles and practices suffering from fundamental flaws.
Some argue that risk assessment itself is outdated. The interconnected and technically intricate structures of modern society have created systems that behave according to Charles Perrow’s Normal Accident Theory and Per Bak’s self-organizing criticality principles. These systems do not conform to traditional risk assessment principles.
The implication of this that we are left with limited ability to predict future events, particularly those that might end up producing catastrophic consequences. This possibility is particularly problematic to someone in the emergency management field, such as myself. It is an essential part of the emergency manager’s duty to attempt to predict outcomes, most importantly the potential disastrous one’s. The notion that we might be incapable to do so is unsettling, it leaves us with a loss of the sense that we might control our environment.
As a professional I am most uncomfortable with this. That is, until I consider my role as a father. It is then that I am reminded that children are the ultimate complex system, and can often provide great insight to the development of criticality.
As a father of four, I am challenged by four unique, yet similar and interconnected systems. The development of these systems is not unlike other complex systems. The first stage in the system requires limited analysis and has extensive data to predict behavior. Most parents call risk assessment in this stage as “childproofing”. Sharp edges, stairs, cabinets, electrical outlets — predictable threats are easily identified and usually preventable.
As the system, i.e. child, develops risk assessment becomes more challenging. As a parent we need to start identifying the low probability, high cost outcomes. Though a child might run into the street multiple times without ever meeting up with a car, the cost of such a low probability event mandates that we indoctrinate the child to never carrying out such actions. We understand the systems innate tendencies, and fence off pools, warn of strangers.
Just when we start to feel confident in our capabilities, the system starts to develop complexity beyond our ability to calculate potential outcomes. The system also develops the capacity to produce more catastrophic events. One example stands out from my own experience.
There is a certain nostalgic right of passage for a father to teach his children to skip rocks. Perhaps it is too many Andy Griffith re-runs. What could possibly be the problem with such a Norman Rockwell-esque ritual? Nothing, until the idea of throwing rocks becomes attractive whether or not a large body of water is in front of you. Thus begins my tale.
As the first rock sails towards a brother the rule is immediately established — no throwing rocks at each other, or anyone else. Due to loose interpretation, this rule was quickly amended to not in the general direction of other people. Ensuing activities mandated a further extension of the rule to no throwing rocks in the general direction of any living thing, car house or other items of value. Finally, the realization that these complex systems are too unpredictable set in; the mandate became NO ROCK THROWING!
Feeling confident that I had sufficiently identified and mitigated the risk, I was caught unprepared by a hysterical child informing me that that the car window had just been shattered by a rock. Clearly a law was broken. The fault was in the perpetrator. But an interrogation of the young lad revealed a possible flaw in the system. Having found a small rock on the walkway, he decided to throw it directly down at the pavement. Why? Because he was 9.
What harm could be done by throwing a rock straight down at the pavement? When the pavement is a raised walkway adjacent to the driveway, and the asymmetric rock strikes at the perfect point to ricochet at a 90 degree angle, and that trajectory is right at the window, the window will shatter. Is a nine year-old supposed to predict this? Is he supposed to interpret this as technically throwing a rock? I determined the answer to both to be no. Was there a failure in the system? If no deliberate act was committed, the answer must be yes.
I had to replace a car window. I had to be thankful that no one was hurt. All of his siblings had recently walked through that area. I realized there are times when luck must compensate for the limitations of a beleaguered and outnumbered parent, or manager. These are the limitations of predicting outcomes in complex environments. And the system only becomes more critical. Social media, driving, drinking…big kids, big worries.
So perhaps it is unrealistic to expect to have all the answers, to be able to control in every environment. Perhaps our environment, like artificial intelligence, is approaching the complexity of the human child.
