Our firm – Quality + Engineering – does risk management. I always seem to asking ‘what if?’ My wife thinks that I’m always looking at the down side and even I’m a little paranoid. I tell her I’m a realist and I’ve not medicated and I’ve never been clinically diagnosed as ‘paranoid.’ So, I put on my happy face until I see another hazard or another ‘what if.’
Some think that even a strong dose of healthy paranoia is good. I’m not talking about clinical or medicated paranoia. I’m talking about the risk-sensitive paranoia of looking at downside risks and planning on how to mitigate them.
Andy Grove of Intel and Bill Gates of Microsoft are the major voices of high-tech success and paranoia. Both believe that fear of complacency and stagnation is good for business and good for people. Fear provides the mechanisms for overcoming inertia and for stimulating forward movement. Grove’s ideas are heresy in the politically charged world, which says that fear is bad, tension kills, fear causes dysfunctionality, and it makes people go ballistic.
Grove said in Only the Paranoid Survive that fear is critical for creating and sustaining the passion and energy to win in the marketplace. Fear is good for the organization, teams, and people. Fear can be harnessed and channeled to try harder, to do better, and to take intelligent risks.
Life Lesson Earned: A friend of mine once said: “If you’re not paranoid, you don’t know what’s going on in this market.” He probably picked this up from the Only The Paranoid Survive book, but it sure applies today.