In the 1996 movie “Mother,” Albert Brooks plays John Henderson, a writer of questionable talent, who’s just been through his second divorce, due to his fundamental inability to relate to women. To probe his back-to-back marital failures, Brooks moves in with his mother, Beatrice, played by Debbie Reynolds, to examine his most important female relationship, and the source (he believes) of his problems. John and Beatrice’s relationship is unlike any mother-son relationship with which most of us are familiar, perhaps epitomized by Beatrice’s unthinking reference to John, when introducing him to friends, as her “other” son. At one point, Beatrice reassuringly offers John a rote platitude, saying, “I love you.” Not missing a beat, John caustically replies, “I know you think you do, Mother!”
Motivated corporations and determined governments often “think” they’ve got potential problems covered, but don’t. Sadly, they discover the chasm between thought and actuality as disaster strikes, when everyone can see the inadequacies in their systems and controls. The U.S. government’s failure to head off the Christmas Day bomber—Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab—provides a cautionary tale worth careful study by those intent on improving their corporate risk-management systems. Proving the most frustrating mistakes often result from having information but failing to focus on it, the U.S. wasted ample relevant information due to a lack of responsibility and an absence of urgency.
