Michael Quinn, former Kaiser Manager: Mediation Advantages

Michael Quinn is the former Director of Risk Management at Kaiser Permanente and has more than twenty years of experience in risk management. Considered an expert in his field, he has overseen more than one thousand mediations, arbitrations and lawsuits in a range of areas and understands that benefits of choosing mediation over litigation.

Mediation Advantages

Quicker Resolution: Litigation can take months or years to resolve an issue, especially in complex or highly contested cases. However, mediation typically only takes a few days or weeks to resolve complex and contentious issues.

Expense: Since mediation is a quicker process than litigation, the cost is significantly reduced, especially since mediation is typically billed at a lower rate than attorney representation.

Personal Involvement: In a courtroom setting, clients are represented by an attorney who must follow legal rules regarding court arguments. However, former Kaiser Executive, Michael Quinn reminds individuals that choosing mediation over litigation means that clients are able to express themselves openly and directly.

Privacy: Mediation is confidential. Even if your case eventually ends up in a court of law, the mediator can only testify to the conditions of a mediation agreement or the fact that no agreement could be reached. The mediation process (including what is discussed) remains private and does not become part of the court record.

 

Michael Quinn Kaiser: Developing Effective Risk Management Strategies

Michael Quinn Kaiser is a successful risk management consultant. Michael Quinn Kaiser spends his days helping his clients determine how to measure risk in their business. 

Once a company’s risks have been identified, it is important to develop a solid plan for dealing with each of those risks, so that they can be continually managed. Creating a risk management plan is one of the most important things a business can do in order to be prepared to deal with the adverse events.

Decide

The first order of business is to develop a solid risk management plan. Depending on your company’s needs, the plan format can vary, but here are a few essential items that should be included in your risk management plan.

·         A complete list of all individual risks.

·         A rating of the individual risks based on their likelihood and impact.

·         A complete assessment of current controls.

·         A plan of action to deal with those risks.

Decide How to Handle the Risks

After you have identified the risks, prioritized them based on the impact to your business and how likely they are to occur, and assessed how effective your current controls are for handling the risks, you need to make a decision on whether you will avoid the risk, reduce the risk, transfer the risk, or accept the risk. 

Each of these strategies has their own advantages and disadvantage to consider.

·         Avoiding the risk completely is an effective way of dealing with it. By halting the activity that is causing the potential problem, you can eliminate the chance of incurring losses in your business. However, doing this will require you to lose out on any potential benefits the risk may contain.

·         Reducing the risk by taking steps to make any negative outcomes less likely to occur, or to find a way to minimize its impact when it does occur. This is the most common strategy and is great for a wide variety of risks.

·         You can transfer many of your businesses risk to an insurance company by insuring your vehicles and properties and obtaining different kinds of liability insurance to protect yourself from lawsuits. For risks that have a large potential impact, this is the best option.

·         In the case of minor risks, it is best to accept them. For those risks that received a low score for likeliness and impact, try to find a simple, low-cost solution for dealing with it.

Recommended to read: Michael Quinn Kaiser Works at 2MQ Risk Management Consulting

Putting a plan in place isn’t enough to mitigate your risks, you have to continually monitor your business in order to identify and deal with new risks. Michael Quinn Kaiser helps companies identify risks and develop plans to keep their business running as a risk management consultant in California.