Risk is a risky word. Already prone to misinterpretation among people who share a language and a culture, the difficulties multiply dangerously when it moves across borders.
“风险”这个词本身就蕴含着风险。即使是语言和文化背景相同的人，对这个词的理解也可能存在差异，而不同国家的人要想就“风险”统一认识更是难上加难。
What a Wall Street trader might define as moderately risky may seem downright insane to a Japanese retail broker; what an oil pipeline engineer in Brazil might characterise as gung-ho may appear overcautious to his revenue-chasing chief executive in London.
在华尔街交易员看来也许只是略有风险的资产，在日本零售经纪人眼中则可能是近乎疯狂的投机。巴西输油管线工程师眼中“头脑发热”的项目，在其追逐利润的驻伦敦首席执行官看来则可能过于保守。
"The perception of risk and uncertainty is very different across cultures," says Javier Gimeno, a professor of international risk and strategic management at Insead. "In some cultures, there is a very high level of uncertainty avoidance. People avoid discussing things where there is uncertainty, or imitate their competitors just to feel the safety of doing the same thing." In some Mediterranean and Arabic cultures, he has observed a "strong sense of fatalism or destiny. You don't want to talk about possible scenarios and possible risks. No one wants to be the person bringing up the risk, which makes the communication of risks difficult."
欧洲工商管理学院(Insead)国际风险与战略管理教授哈维尔•吉梅诺(Javier Gimeno)表示：“不同文化对于风险和不确定性的认识存在很大差异。一些文化对不确定性的规避程度极高。人们不愿谈论不确定的事情，或者常常去模仿竞争对手，而这只是为了求得一种从众的安全感。”他发现，地中海和阿拉伯地区的一些文化，“具有很强的宿命色彩。人们不愿谈论可能情形或可能风险，不愿把风险当作话题。这使得外人很难与他们沟通风险问题”。
Since the explosion of BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago, students of risk have been poring over the causes. An important factor appears to have been a failure in communication between BP's London headquarters and its US operations over the balance between internal control and operational aggression.
自两年前英国石油(BP)马孔多(Macondo)油井爆炸事故发生以来，风险管理领域的研究者们就一直在探讨这起事故发生的原因。BP伦敦总部和美国分公司在平衡内部控制与业务推进方面存在沟通上的失误，这可能是导致事故发生的重要原因之一。
Richard Anderson, head of the Institute of Risk Management, a professional training body in London, says that years before the accident, Lord Browne, then chief executive of BP, told his internal auditors that the philosophy for internal control was "we don't like surprises". In the UK, says Mr Anderson, managers took this to mean they should alert their superiors to any looming problems, whereas in the US, some misconstrued Lord Browne's instructions to mean nasty surprises were to be hidden."Language always comes with a set of cultural baggage," says Mr Anderson, who has studied the affair. "That was definitely evident in that case."
位于伦敦的职业培训机构“风险管理研究所”(Institute of Risk Management)的所长理查德•安德森(Richard Anderson)指出，在这起事故发生的若干年前，时任BP首席执行官的布朗勋爵(Lord Browne)曾对内部审计人员表示，BP的内控理念就是“我们不喜欢意外”。安德森说，在英国，管理者们把这句话理解为应当就任何快要出现的问题向上级发出预警；而在美国，布朗勋爵的这句话被错误理解为要“报喜不报忧”。对此事有过研究的安德森指出：“语言离不开其特定的文化背景，这一点在整件事中非常明显。”
Since the financial crisis, banks have been criticised for relying too much on value-at-risk models–which calculate the risk of a bank's position based on historic probability of adverse events over time–that failed to account for the severity of what was to occur in 2008. But, says Prof Gimeno, VAR remains a useful tool provided it is only one of several used by organisations. The challenge is that so much risk can escape the scrutiny of even the most sophisticated risk management tools.
自金融危机发生以来，银行业一直因过度倚赖风险价值(VaR)模型而饱受批评。风险价值模型基于消极事件发生的历史概率来计算银行头寸面临的风险。批评人士称，风险价值模型未能充分估计到2008年事件的严重性。但吉梅诺教授认为，风险价值仍是一个有用工具——前提是金融机构在使用这个工具的同时，也要使用其他风险控制工具。当前的挑战在于，即使用上最先进的风险控制工具，也无法确保很大一部分风险不成为“漏网之鱼”。
Oil companies, for example, measure risk in all kinds of ways, from political risk and operational risk to the macroeconomic factors that might lead to fluctuating oil prices. But these measurements are next to useless without open communication and shared assumptions about language.
举例来说，石油公司以多种多样的方式来度量风险，其度量指标涵盖政治风险、运营风险以及可导致油价出现波动的宏观经济因素。但如果公司内部沟通不畅、对于相关语言的理解不一致，上述度量的作用将大打折扣。
"An important dimension in risk management is the extent to which there is vertical communication within a company," says Prof Gimeno. "Compare a Dutch company – where an employee can talk easily to his superior – to a Japanese or Korean company, where there is a big separation between the ranks. This can lead to communication not being pushed upward. This isn't just company cultures, it's national culture." The potential nightmare arises when a company knows less than the individuals within it because of lack of communication between the ranks.
吉梅诺教授称：“风险管理中很重要的一个方面是考察公司内部上下级之间的信息沟通有多么顺畅。在一家荷兰公司里，普通雇员可以很容易地与其上级进行交流。而在日本或韩国企业里，上下级之间等级森严，导致信息很难由下到上传递。这已不再仅仅是公司文化问题，而是属于国家文化范畴。”当公司上下级之间沟通不畅导致管理层掌握的信息少于员工时，严重的风险隐患就产生了。

The growing field of enterprise risk management seeks to crack this problem by guiding organisations on improving structures and governance around risk. "It is about settling on a way to identify, assess and respond to risk in [a] way that is culturally consistent across the organisation," says Mr Anderson. "Organisations are starting to define their risk so that language does not break down across boundaries."

快速发展的企业风险管理(ERM)理论试图通过引导企业以风险为中心优化架构和治理，来破解上述问题。安德森表示：“ERM旨在确定一种机制，使企业各部门能在统一认识的基础上识别、评估和应对风险。企业正在着手制定对风险的定义，以确保自己在各国的业务部门不在风险认识方面产生差异。”
The relatively new breed of risk professionals also aims toprovide the kind of hard intelligence that will pierce what Mr Anderson calls the "perfect place arrogance" that can beset multinationals. Companies with strong national identities risk thinking that what they do at home will work equally well abroad. "They think "just because we've been successful on Wall Street, we can do the same thing in London, Tokyo and Frankfurt".Such thinking can be challenged with trenchant assessments of the risks present in each new market.
相对新兴的风险管理专业人士，还试图通过提供那类“硬情报”，来破除安德森所谓的“完美地自负”(perfect place arrogance)，这种自负可能给跨国企业带来困扰。具有鲜明地域特色的公司可能会认为，自己在本国的业务模式在海外市场也同样有效。“他们认为，‘既然在华尔街能够取得成功，我们在伦敦、东京和法兰克福同样也能成功’。”通过对各个新市场中存在的风险做出明晰的评估，我们就可对这种自负的想法提出质疑。
The challenge ofERM is to find the right balance between operating as yet another audit system and building risk-orientated thinking into day-to-day management.
ERM面临的挑战在于，要在成为又一套内部审计系统和将风险导向型思维融入日常管理之间找到合适的平衡点。
John Ludlow, vice-president for global risk management at InterContinental Hotels Group, runs a $100m budget to manage risk across IHG's 4,600 hotels in 100 countries. What ties IHG employees' everyday actions to the company's strategic view of risk is a determination to "champion and protect our brands". This sense of the brand being the most important asset is what aligns the many activities that fall under the category of "risk".
约翰•勒德洛(John Ludlow)是洲际酒店集团(InterContinental Hotels Group)全球风险管理副总裁，他负责以1亿美元的年预算管理集团在全球100个国家的4600家酒店的业务风险。勒德洛表示，将员工日常行为与集团风控战略观联结起来的因素，是一种“捍卫和维护公司品牌”的决心。这种将品牌看做最重要资产的意识，是集团管理者在处理各种风险事件时的共同出发点。
Mr Ludlow says understanding context–more so than language–is the first step in any global risk management plan. In any country in the world, people consider risk in terms of the law, logic and relationships, but in different orders of importance: "In China, it's relationships first and the law third. In the US, it's law first, then logic, then relationships."
勒德洛称，理解不同地区的文化背景是制定全球性风险控制方案的第一步，它比理解语言方面的差异更重要。在全球任何一个国家，人们在分析风险时都会从法律、逻辑和人际关系三方面考虑；但不同国家的人对这三者重要程度的排序存在差异。“在中国，人际关系排第一位，法律排第三；在美国，则是法律排第一位，其次是逻辑，最后才是人际关系。”
At IHG, risks range from picking local developers and operators to ensuring the safety of guests and staff during any natural disaster or attack.
洲际酒店集团面临一系列风险因素，从选择合适的本地开发商和运营商，到在发生自然灾害或遭遇袭击时保证宾客和员工的安全。
Mr Ludlow's team includes recruits from the military and intelligence services for their expertise at gathering information, as well as operational experts capable of implementing a 2,000-page volume of policies and standards. The latter range from knife safety in kitchens to evacuation plans in the event of extreme political unrest. "We have e-learning and safety training in different languages for people at different levels of the organisation," he says. "Each day, there are checklists, 10-minute online campaigns and poster campaigns".
勒德洛负责的团队招收了一批曾在军事和情报机构工作的员工，因为这些人擅长收集信息；另外还包括几位运营专家，这些人有能力将厚达2000页的风控政策和标准贯彻实施。这些政策和标准涵盖各个方面，从厨房中的刀具安全，到爆发严重政治动乱时的人员撤离方案。勒德洛称：“我们有不同语言版本的网络学习和安全培训内容，供各个级别的员工学习。除此之外，我们每天还列出风险排查清单，播出时长10分钟的风险教育网络宣传片，并张贴宣传海报。”
The greatest pitfalls in managing risk across borders, he says, emerge from assuming too much. When dealing with fellow English speakers, it is easy to imagine that a shared language means shared assumptions that the English, Americans and Australians think the same thing because they are using the same words.
勒德洛指出，企业在全球风险管理方面存在的最大隐患在于过于想当然。例如，在与和自己一样以英语为母语的人打交道时，管理者很容易认为语言相同意味着想法相同，即英国人、美国人和澳大利亚人在使用相同的措辞时表达的是同一意思。
With less familiar cultures, all kinds of unpredicted mistakes can occur."In your own culture, you can assume so much. But when you're dealing with different cultures, you can do your best but you have to go further to make sure that what you both think you've done is the same thing."
如果交流双方的文化背景差异较大，这种想当然可能会导致各种意想不到的误会。“如果交流双方来自同一文化背景，这种想当然还问题不大。如果你在与来自不同文化背景的人交流，那么你在侃侃而谈的同时，有必要进一步确认一下对方对你所说的话的理解和你想表达的意思是一回事。”