Mastering Catastrophic Risk

A profound and insightful look at how company leaders prepare for and respond to shocks and crises that threaten their business. Successful firms strategically manage and are more accurate in their assessment of large-scale risks. Doing so is increasingly challenging given the pace of change, whether financial, technological, regulatory, or environmental. Mastering Catastrophic Risk provides real-world practical insights into how large companies are responding to this new reality and develops a framework for smarter thinking about events that can damage a business. As leading authorities on risk management, strategy, and company leadership, Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem take us on a groundbreaking tour of firms' decision making process. They demonstrate how improving readiness for and resilience against future shocks is now an integral part of company strategy. Using the "DISRUPT" model they have developed, they highlight the seven primary Drivers of disruption: Interdependencies increase exposure; Short-term focus results in limited vision; Regulations require change and constrain opportunities; Urbanization increases the costs of disasters; Probabilities of disasters have increased; and Transparency has enhanced public awareness of problems and impacts on firms' reputations. Some disruptions can be anticipated, while others arrive without warning. Their onset stresses decision makers, impairs company operations, and may even put the enterprise at risk. The bottom-line: business leaders and their governing boards face ever more challenging disruptions and must be ever more on guard. If your company is hit tomorrow, will it bounce back, or drown?

Risk taking is inherent in competition and managing risk well is a mark of successful firms. Doing so is increasingly challenging given the pace of change, whether financial, technological, environmental, reputational, or political. Rethinking Catastrophic Risk draws on extensive interviewswith risk managers to provide real-world insights and a framework for smart thinking and planning for possible disruptions, adverse events, or crises that could seriously harm the normal business functions or operations of a firm.Corporate leaders face a series of ever-more-challenging decisions to avoid and respond to perils that can be caused by external forces or by harmful actions within the firm. The business world is growing ever riskier given rapid changes generated by increasing concentration of populations andassets, complex interdependencies of markets and supply-chains, pressures of short-term demands for results, and the pressures of transparency combined with the prominence of social media. Some shocks can be anticipated, but many others come as a surprise and create considerable stress on decisionmakers, often leading to even worse outcomes.As leading authorities on risk management, decision processes, and leadership, Howard Kunreuther, Erwann Michel-Kerjan, and Michael Useem draw on their extensive experience to enhance understanding of risk management and call for improving resilience to future shocks as an integral part of corporatestrategy. This book is chock-full of anecdotes based on extensive interviews with leaders from all sectors of the Fortune 500 and provides a framework for linking intuitive and deliberative thinking for managing low-probability, high-consequence events. It highlights the importance of institutionalarrangements and leadership capability and will benefit managers at all levels and especially executives and directors seeking to reposition their firms to better anticipate and manage adverse events.

Imagine that you are a corporate executive or small business owner in a midwestern city under water after weeks of extreme weather and drenching rainfall. Infrastructure has been damaged beyond repair, transportation arteries are closed, and your supply chain is broken. Families have been driven from homes, food and water are in short supply, and people are becoming unruly. Government agencies are not in a position to help. Declining revenue and partisan antipathy fueled by ideological differences have eroded confidence in government. The city is in total disrepair and unable to deliver desperately needed services. It is edging toward implosion and community leaders have turned to you for help. Catastrophe that would have been unthinkable in earlier times is a reality in a world coming out of pandemic and facing existential threats such as climate change, inequality and global conflict. Catastrophic Risk: Business Strategy for Managing Turbulence in a World at Risk challenges business to step up and assume a pivotal role with communities under stress due to prolonged exposure to risk. When powerful societal forces meet behavior that deters response to risk, the consequences of risk are exacerbated. The compounding effect of behavior on risk has opened an important role for business in mobilizing people and communities in times of crisis. It is a role that cannot be fulfilled, however, without purpose, strategy and plans sufficiently robust to overcome the threat of risk. To prosper in this environment, business will need to make a significant contribution to society as well as to deliver financial performance. For companies, this will mean involvement in community in ways that significantly depart from current practice. For leaders, it will mean new skills—contextual sensitivity, a greater understanding of behavioral dynamics, and enhanced capacity to relate to people on an emotive basis. This book is about the relationship between risk, societal forces and human behavior—a relationship informed by the sciences that is critically important for business. Its goal is two-fold: to bring catastrophic risk to the world of business and to further business engagement in service to the common good.

Events ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the global economic crisis have taught businesspeople an unforgettable lesson: if you don’t plan for “extreme risk,” you endanger your organization’s very survival. But how can you plan for events that go far beyond anything that occurs in normal day-to-day business? In Learning from Catastrophes, two renowned experts present the first comprehensive strategic framework for assessing, responding to, and managing extreme risk. Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem build on their own breakthrough work on mitigating natural disasters, extending it to the challenges faced by real-world enterprises. Along with the contributions of leading experts in risk management, heuristics, and disaster recovery, they identify the behavioral biases and faulty heuristics that mislead decision makers about the likelihood of catastrophe. They go on to identify the hidden links associated with extreme risks, and present techniques for systematically building greater resilience into the organization. The global best-seller The Black Swan told executives that “once in a lifetime” events are far more common and dangerous than they ever realized. Learning from Catastropheshows them exactly what to do about it.

Catastrophic risk is one of the most significant and challenging areas of corporate risk management. Analyze this risk for your company with Catastrophic Risk and make sure you have sufficient resources to absorb losses and avoid financial distress. The first comprehensive volume to address this topic from a financial perspective, this book is a guide to the worst financial risks threatening companies and industries today. Author Eric Banks begins with a consideration of ?catastrophe? and its mplications, looks at the state of actuarial and financial modelling of catastrophe risks, and discusses the creation of a risk management framework that will enable the efficient and secure management of exposure. Catastrophic Risk is essential reading if you're a corporate treasurer, CFO, or insurance/financial risk manager responsible for corporate risk management. Order your copy today.

In the wake of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, many are asking what, if anything, can be done to prevent large-scale disasters. How is it that we know more about the hazards of modern American life than ever before, yet the nation faces ever-increasing losses from such events? History shows that disasters are not simply random acts. Where is the logic in creating an elaborate set of fire codes for buildings, and then allowing structures like the Twin Towers—tall, impressive, and risky—to go up as design experiments? Why prepare for terrorist attacks above all else when floods, fires, and earthquakes pose far more consistent threats to American life and prosperity? The Disaster Experts takes on these questions, offering historical context for understanding who the experts are that influence these decisions, how they became powerful, and why they are only slightly closer today than a decade ago to protecting the public from disasters. Tracing the intertwined development of disaster expertise, public policy, and urbanization over the past century, historian Scott Gabriel Knowles tells the fascinating story of how this diverse collection of professionals—insurance inspectors, engineers, scientists, journalists, public officials, civil defense planners, and emergency managers—emerged as the authorities on risk and disaster and, in the process, shaped modern America.

Dealing with high-stakes risk potentials is dependent on getting to grips with easy to understand, yet difficult to apply, criteria for decision. With a fresh, honest approach, this book shows why scientific assessments of catastrophic risk based on averages don't work, and sets the stage for making the tough choice between precaution and fatalism.