Hurrah for uncertainty! Three cheers for trepidation! As the world tiptoes gingerly into 2012, let’s celebrate the fallibility of forecasting and the perils of prediction.

Why? First, because uncertainty will not dissipate soon, so businesses might as well try to make the best of what little they do know. Second, because an excess of certainty got us into this predicament. A little new year caution may be welcome.

Some of the steps taken by managers to offset dangers ahead are worryingly circular, however. I was surprised, for example, at the number of top executives and directors who, in a recent survey for Lloyd’s, the London insurance market, said the most effective risk management action they had taken over the past three years was?...?to put in place a risk management team.