When I was a young, bright-eyed MBA intern at Citi, the company held weekly presentations for us to hear from different executives about the glorious power of a global banking institution and woo us into accepting a full time offer at the end of the summer. Most of the speakers were disturbingly out of touch – maybe not surprising for Wall Street at any point in history – but one has stayed with me over the years and pops back into my conscious here and there.
The speaker was Brian Leach and at the time he was serving as Citi’s Chief Risk Officer, responsible for a multi-billion dollar portfolio that was being called to task by governments around the work for its part in enabling the subprime mortgage crisis and ensuing recession.
The analogy that he shared was how the nature of risk changes depending on the target. If you were given the option to play one round of Russian roulette for a million dollars, would you say yes? Would that be an acceptable level of risk?
Being a room full of hopeful future investment bankers, most heads were nodding. Totally reasonable exchange.
But what if you weren’t holding the gun to your own head? What if you had to point the gun at your mother, your spouse, your child. How does that change the level of risk you’re willing to take?
With a global pandemic continue to take a heavy toll, there are plenty of arguments on both sides. Arguments for freedom and personal choice. Arguments for empathy and self-sacrifice. As you consider the options and make a decision, as we each must do, you are taking a gamble. Collectively we’re gambling with the economy. With lives and livelihoods. With side-effects and outcomes that we can’t even imagine yet. But just for a minute, before you go all in, think about where that gun is actually pointing before you accept the bet.
Purposeful Pursuits 