Risk management recognizes that you need a “Plan B.” You can’t eliminate risk. With a good “Plan A” you can do your best to prevent something bad from happening. But not always.

A good Plan B mitigates the consequences when plan A fails. Plan B prepares for the inevitable, creating resilience to deal with the shock of a negative event.

This abstract concept was made very real to me this week. I was a passenger in a car that collided with a large deer on a remote section of a freeway. It was late Sunday night. The weather was good, the four lane highway was clear with an average amount of traffic. Suddenly, we saw a white flash as a deer jumped in front of our vehicle. There was no time for reaction. The crumpling of the hood seemed to happen in slow motion compared to the split-second between the time we saw the flash and felt the thud of the collision. (more…)