Risk managers should learn from the mistakes of others

Doing enough detective work to discover whether companies are really rotten to the core may be challenging for busy risk managers. But bad eggs usually come with early warning signs, which are easier to spot, writes Vincent Kaminski

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself."

This very wise advice by writer and comedian Groucho Marx is difficult to follow in practice. After all, most people are not interested in advertising their blunders, and if they cannot sweep them under the rug, they will always find convenient excuses and scapegoats.

In order to truly learn from the mistakes of others, one idea offered by Black swan author Nassim Taleb is to socialise a lot. That may be