Story From the Military About Risk

While serving in the United States military, I participated in a deployment to southwest Egypt. My fellow paratroopers and I would jump into the desert establish a presence and patrol the border with Libya. To obscure our insertion, we planned to jump in the middle of the night, illuminated by a full moon directly overhead.

On this particular night everything started smoothly. The flight was uneventful. I left the airplane and my parachute deployed properly. Once my canopy was overhead, I checked my surroundings. Quickly I became concerned about running into another jumper. Midair collisions are common and dangerous.

One of my closest friends had been seriously injured a year earlier when his chute collapsed as the result of a midair collision. On this moonlit night I could see the silhouette of another parachute directly below me. At first it was distant and the danger was remote. But as I descended, the silhouette grew closer.

I turned to the left to avoid collision, but the silhouette followed. I turned right and it followed again. It was not until I was nearly on the ground that I realized that the silhouette I was trying to avoid was the shadow of my own parachute cast on the sand below from the full moon overhead.

Of all the things to fear, of all the things that could go wrong, of all the possible problems, in that particular instant, I chose to be afraid of my own shadow.

Mieg and Evetts Model

Harald Mieg and Julia Evetts explained the interactions between risk, experts, and lay persons in this way:

It starts with a lay person who is confronted by a risk, or a problem. The risk is something that the layperson either cannot or will not solve alone, but it is something the lay person desires to overcome through resolution or avoidance.

On the other side of the equation, we have an expert and an appropriate body of knowledge and skill. Of course, the expert must possess the knowledge and skill which is sufficient to address the risk or problem in question. The scope, in other words, of the expert’s abilities are relevant to the lay-person’s risk.

Eventually the layperson attributes the expert a trusted status and grants the expert a measure of control to resolve the risk. If any of these elements are missing, then the model breaks down and the SME becomes irrelevant. For example: If the risk is insignificant then there is no urgent need for an expert. This scenario happens when an expert becomes engaged in the selling process, but the customer is not feeling urgency to resolve the specific risk or problem. The company simply does not feel the need to resolve the risk.

Sometimes the risk is real, but the customer does not believe that anyone has sufficient knowledge or skill to resolve it. Maybe the customer feels urgency to overcome a risk and they know a solution exists, but they simply feel you lack the required knowledge or skill.

Sometimes the customer urgently needs to overcome a risk. They know a solution exists. And they believe you can address the problem efficiently, yet they still withhold trust or fail to grant you the latitude you need to resolve the situation. Sometimes organizations want your help, but they cannot prioritize your solution. Sometimes the customer is constrained financially, politically, or legally.Having all these elements in place is a necessary condition for resolution but not a sufficient one to ensure success.

Great SMEs understand the lay person. They identify the risk that must be overcome, they demonstrate repeatable procedures for success. And they gain the trust of their customers and colleagues.

In the next section we’ll address risk mitigation, an important skill in the SME’s arsenal. Great SMEs, the very best ones, don’t get distracted. They identify the customer’s true risks and show a path to resolution. Risk is the SME’s chief opponent. Everything about the work of an SME pivots on risk.