INNOVATION VIEWPOINTS Responding to the need behind the question A story by Dan Morris. This was it: my first client where I was the lead strategist! After years of mathematics, actuarial training, and client meetings, I was ready. What could go wrong? Dan Morris, AIA The chair of trustees had given me specific instructions on how to reach the board Head of Systematic room at the top of a Canary Wharf skyscraper in London and the topics that they Investments wanted me to address to the trustees of the company’s defined benefit plan. I was anxious yet fully prepared, waiting in the glassed lobby to be summoned in. As I entered, the room was daunting and crowded, but I received a warm and friendly welcome from the group, which calmed my nerves. After introductions, the meeting continued. The chair began, “We have a change of plans for today. Our sponsor is funding the defined benefit plan’s deficit and is closing it down. The real challenge is helping all of the members in the defined contribution plan achieve something as good. What should we do?” As abruptly, a spontaneous debate broke out on technical aspects of risks faced by the defined contribution plan’s members, engaging the room and animating many of whom had financial backgrounds. Yet the clamoring discussion was brought to a murmur by one trustee, calling across the room: “We all understand volatility, but this means very little to many of our members. Tell me what they will retire with?” We were now onto basic goals, the risks of missing those goals, and the available levers a saver has to pull to get back on track. W ith nothing specific prepared on the topic, it was time for me to go back to first principles and work out what really was being asked. How could I salvage this meeting? I began to piece together a translation of volatility, discussed earlier, into something more tangible that could get to the root of this trustee’s concern. 21 2020