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Story about Risk Identification & Risk Mitigation

Contributed by Ajay Kumar Jhingan

Trainer in Banking & Finance

Hawk is a bird that has life of almost 30 years on an average. But after some years of its life, it has to take an important decision about its life. This is because at this stage of its life, the body of hawk gets affected due to three main natural changes & become ineffective. These major changes are:

1. The claws get long and become too flexible but make the Hawk unable to hold on to prey.
2. The beak gets folded forward and the intake of food gets interrupted.
3. The wings of Hawk become heavy and the bird finds it difficult to take flights since the heavy wings wrap around its body & are not lift-able.

Due to these three changes in the life of Hawk, the bird is not in a position to hold the food due to its incapacitation of long and flexible claws. The bird also finds it difficult to hold & eat food as the beak is folded forward. The worst situation is that the Hawk is not in a position to fly, due to heavy wings, at its desired altitudes to manage its life.

Due to above three processes, the bird becomes unable and has to fight for survival.

There are three alternatives available with Hawk now:

1. Either it should end its life

2. Or leave its natural tendency to fly, prey and eat food & choose to live as a vulture lives on.

3. Or "to restore itself" and live like a king of sky to fly high and prey for the food.

The first two options are simple and quick but the third option is painful and longest. Mostly, it is a tendency of Hawks that they choose the third painful option to restore for survival.

At this point of time, the Hawk decides to choose to live on a high mountain & makes its nest in solitary and then starts the process of restoring itself.

In this painful process of restoration of life, first the bird hits its beak on a rock and breaks the beak. There is nothing more painful than breaking beak for this king of sky. The bird lives on food which it can pick and eat like small birds & that too with a difficulty. This privilege is available by mercy of God. The bird awaits so that the mushroomed beak comes again. Upon completion of first process and getting a new beak, the turn comes for the second process.

In this second process, the Hawk breaks its claws in the same way and waits for the claw come back. This is also a process which is painful. The Hawk breaks its one claw at a time and waits for the other claw to break after getting a new claw in place of the first claw.

The third and the last step for the Hawk is to break its massive wings with the new beak and claws and awaits for the new wings to grow.

The process of restoration takes around 150 days after the rigorous pain and long wait. The Hawk is now in a position to fly at high altitudes and join the grand company of birds.

After this restoration process, the bird gets new lease of life and is able to fly for remaining years as it has won its battle of restoration and has gained energy. It flies with total respect and dignity.

A famous quote says, “Watch your finances like a Hawk”. You all know the competition is quite stiff in almost all types of sectors whether it is banking, insurance, hospitality, airline, hospitals or whatever you name. Risk of survival remains all the times. Finance is the backbone to run the show. When finance is involved, the risk of loss is always there whereas our expectation is to earn profits and make necessary additions to capital for further development. This is the demand of time with changing situations. How to mitigate risk in the best possible manner requires knowledge, desire, imagination and activity to face challenges. These all seem weak if we are plagued with the past. The life of a Hawk spells the same clearly.

There is an urgent need to measure risk, identify risk and take steps to mitigate or minimize risk so as to have expected returns. If we are in a position to protect the risk (any type of risk) of our institutions where we are working, our career is also taken care. As the institution grows, we will also grow and live with dignity and respect in our society.

Think for a while how nice it will look if we are able to have Hawkish Flights in our career due to our recognition in an institution to whom we love the most as our life is associated & maintained with the maintenance of the life of our institution. In other words, survival of our institution is important for our own survival as survival of the fittest is a rule for survival in this stiff competition and around the world.

We must develop skills and acquire professional acumen to give our best for which we are chosen. The manner in which Hawk decides to choose the survival option in the story above and mitigates the originated risks is the natural talent of this bird. It takes time to learn & to become skillful in the areas of our interests before we initiate to have Hawkish flights.

Remember that your knowledge remains with you and the more you acquire, the more you develop yourself. GRC community is going ahead with the same aim in mind with scholarly contributions & is now a step forward to introduce courses for the benefit of all. Hence, acquire skills and be skillful to have Hawkish flights.

Hope that you must have liked this inspiring risk identification and risk mitigation article.

Best Wishes.

I'd love to hear your feedback in the comments box below

p.s. Join The Course on Drafting of Loan Documentation (Basics) which has been prepared by Ajay Kumar Jhingan.