The Ineffective Risk Manager - A Comedy or maybe a tragedy

This in from a close friend. It took awhile to stop laughing.

So museums, like other firms, high these folks called Risk Managers. Otherwise they have security or safety professionals that fill this role, and sometimes they just have to rely on an operations manager to do this job. Well here's the result when no one is observing the environment with an objective eye and taking appropriate actions to safeguard the assets.

And here is the asinine comment of the day:

"Whilst the method of displaying objects is always under review, it is important not to over-react and make the museum's collections less accessible to the visiting public," he added in a statement."

Wrong! Assets like these - that is IRREPLACEABLE - must be less accessible to the public. That doesn't mean they need to be hidden either, but some sort of barrier should prevent destructive unauthorized access.

Let's face it, it's not like these can be replaced. The insurance carrier MIGHT pay a claim, and right there is a problem. The carrier should have dictated specific safeguards to be used in the display of the asset, otherwise no claim check. But even with the money the museum is out the vases, out the exhibit, and out the patronage that the vases drew. They were a key exhibit, why weren't they protected?

The priceless vases, dating from the late 17th or early 18th century, were donated to the museum in 1948 and have become one of its most recognizable exhibits.

And here's the absolute funniest quote from the article:

Shocked but determined museum staff members have vowed to glue the shards back together again.

I guess they were all absent the day that the whole Humpty Dumpty fairytale was covered.


Here's the moral of the story... Take a step back; look at your facility; know your organization's mission; then ask what if, what if, what if, and don't stop asking until the day you retire.