Manage Risk Like a Royal Marine

It is March 20, 2003, a few miles off the coast of Iraq's Al Faw Peninsula. In the dark of night, Corporal Mike Stevenson leads his section of seven heavily-armed Royal Marines across the deck of HMS Ark Royal toward the waiting Sea King helicopter. On the horizon, he can see fires erupting, and overhead, the afterburners of Patriot and Tomahawk missiles.

In a few minutes, the Royal Marines will commence the mission for which they have spent months planning and preparing. Every one of the marines knows the target in intricate detail, down to the ranges between buildings and the emergency escape plan if things go wrong. Just as the helicopter door is about to slide shut, their company commander appears. He bellows, "There has been a change of plan, Stevie. You have to attack a totally different target, about 10 klicks from the original location."

Sudden changes like that are deeply unsettling for most people. They create fear and stress, often leading to hasty and ill-considered responses. Our biology largely drives this, triggering instant fight or flight responses. Fortunately, elite soldiers like Mike Stevenson respond differently.

To understand human behavior around risk, and to learn how to manage it better, it's important to recognize that one man's fear is another man's opportunity. Skydiving or potholing might be terrifying for some, but a thrill and a pleasure for others. Which camp you fall into is largely driven by how well you understand what's involved. In other words, it's not the risks that create fear and trigger poor decisions so much as not understanding what the risks are.

The Royal Marines react to sudden change by converting uncertainty and ambiguity into well-defined risks. They deconstruct a situation such as the one Mike Stevenson faced and seek out information to fill the gaps in their understanding of it. By doing so, they can move to a position in which they make judgments based upon known probabilities and comparable outcomes.

How do they do it? Gathering data helps to some extent. More effective, however, is providing individuals with as many opportunities as possible to gain a broad range of experience and knowledge. This is core to how the Royal Marines train and operate. From day one until they leave the Corps, they are subjected to a battery of unique surprises. They will be told to prepare for a group exercise on the Scottish moors, only to be landed offshore and told to take control of a heavily-guarded fort on Cyprus. This allows them to build up a portfolio of experience in adapting to change and in quickly assessing risks. It's how they learn to shape uncertainty rather than be driven by it. It's because of this sort of training and preparation that Corporal Stevenson could respond to his company commander with calm: "No problem, Sir. I knew it was too good to be true!" and pulled out a pen to write down the new grid reference.

How adept are your own troops at reacting to change, and in making decisions that are based on facts — not fear?