Actuaries are innately problem solvers. Our inherent personality traits of being introspective, reflective and analytical give us a head start. The actuarial education and training we receive on the job equip us with a toolkit (see the earlier post on the Actuarial Control Cycle here), logical/mathematical reasoning and risk-oriented mindset that enable us further too.
However, perhaps this innate personality trait and overly analytical training are also our Achilles heel. We find that many of us are not in decision-making positions in our careers and organisations, rather we are content making recommendations (that is changing) for another decision maker (eg the CEO, Chief Distribution Officer, Chief Strategy Officer or others).
We tend to worry about things that can go wrong and worst-case outcomes, which admittedly are important skills, but inhibit us from moving into decision making positions.
Why do I say so? Often when making decisions in organisations, the information available can be ambiguous, and the best decisions may not be clear. Or there may not be a best decision at all.
And we also need to be comfortable with the possibility of failure - which can have implications on the organisation and our careers too sometimes.
We can take safer career pathways avoiding these risky roles, but my view is that we are doing a disservice to ourselves and to society at large doing so.
Let's look at the implications to ourselves first due to avoidance of decision making roles.
We can rise quite far up the career ladder without being the decision maker, but we will have less influence on the outcome of our work. This can lead to lower personal satisfaction, as we may not see our strategies being implemented properly.
The risk-reward paradigm we learn also applies to our careers - if we are content with lower risk roles, the rewards we can potentially reap are also limited.
Also we may have an exaggerated view of the risk, when in fact there are many mitigations available to remedy incorrect decisions.
What are the implications to society?
Who do we want in positions of power calling the shots? We hope to have emphathetic, self aware leaders with strong problem solving skills. I dare say many of the actuaries, and actuarial aspirants I know fit this bill quite well. However very few of us move into such positions.
And as a result, there are fewer people with our personality traits and skills in positions of power. Do we not owe the world better leadership? And what better way to do it, than by example?
And yes, like the pot calling the kettle black, I too am overly cautious and tread very cautiously into decision making roles, with many back-up plans...but let's start inching outside our comfort zones and move into these decision making roles.
My experience is that it is kind of a muscle in the mind - when we push ourselves to make decisions in ambiguous situations, experience failure (and success sometimes), and pick ourselves up and do it again, it becomes easier. It becomes easier to pick ourselves up, and it becomes easier to make decisions...let's give it a shot! (Or rather several repeated shots and keep going at it...)
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