This week I revisited some Murphy’s Law reflections,

«There are all kinds of things in the Lord’s vineyard» says a popular adage; those «third parties», be it a supplier, collaborator, employee, contractor, partner, government employees, government authority, customers with whom we are necessarily linked in business -and in personal life- have their own history and thus bring opportunities and risks to our own activity.

At one time I decided not to go out to certain public places because I didn’t know who was next to me and I was worried about being in the middle of some unknown risk – of course it came from a previous trauma of having already been in a situation where it seemed like a cataclysm of trouble when two neighbors at the next table in the middle of a concert started to quarrel with each other.

How do we manage these third party risks? In the end, we approach the relationship and our work with that third party with the perception of risk that allows us to feel at least comfortable with the outcome – to look at ourselves in the mirror with respect or to sleep peacefully -; in technical terms we decide to assimilate, transfer or mitigate those risks, to take actions that allow us to live with the consequences of the residual risk that remains after any action we take.

Third parties often change their behavior – part of human nature -, become involved in real or imaginary problems such as fraud, crime, scandals, corruption, etc., and it is necessary to periodically evaluate whether our original perceptions are still valid – in other words, whether the risk of interacting with them is still tolerable.

Although there are cases in which these third parties have a double agenda and make an effort to deceive the public, – it is part of the risks of living in society to run into these characters that exist in the vineyard of the Lord-; at least we mitigate the risks by making selection processes of relationships with third parties with some criteria and visiting our premises periodically, thus reducing the possibility of being in the middle of «cataclysms» that affect us.