Eddard (Ned) Stark, Lord of Winterfell, is a protagonist in the book A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. He is principled and tells the truth and believes in honour and justice. Ned would make an excellent Chief Risk…
Felix Kloman, the Rocket and risk management
I received an email from Felix Kloman last Friday. If you do not know about Mr. Kloman’s work, then I strongly suggest that you click on the Felix Kloman (Legend) link in my Blogroll to find his Risk Management…
Gladwell, crashing planes and risk management
In his book “Outliers”, author Malcolm Gladwell explains how “The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication” as opposed to mechanical causes. Also, they usually happen after a sequence of mistakes and…
Dan Gardiner, optimism and iceberg risk
Dan Gardner writes in Chapter 3 of his book Future Babble: “Overconfidence is a universal human trait closely related to an equally widespread phenomenon known as ‘optimism bias’.” This overconfidence often leads us to assess our risks poorly. We all…
Rant about mobile phones and E. coli
The book Fast Food Nation was one of my favourites when I read it years ago specifically the chapter about the risks of E. coli and the meat packing industry. One of the most memorable quotes I know came from…
Risk management oldies but goodies
The good folks at Riskviews got me thinking about my least read posts. I’ve been doing this for a few years and understand that no one wants to scroll through over 300 blog entries to find some gems from 2006.…
Oswald Grübel’s moment of wrongness
I just had the pleasure of watching author Kathryn Schulz’s TED video about being wrong. As I watched I couldn’t help thinking about Oswald Grübel’s “moment of wrongness”: when he learned about UBS’s $2 billion trading loss. Last November Grübel went…
Voldemort vs Taleb Deathmatch
With all the hype surrounding the final Harry Potter movie, I thought I would compare Voldemort to Nassim Taleb, financial guru and author of the book “The Black Swan”, to see who is greater. (Plus I thought it might be funny.) (Removed a…
Lord Voldemort: Risk Manager of the Year
Lord Voldermort would make an excellent risk manager because when he identifies a risk, he assesses it and treats it immediately. Here are a few of my reasons but I welcome additional examples of his risk management in the comment…
Stairs risk management
Some interesting info on stairs to share wtih you. According to the book At Home by Bill Bryson, the second most common cause of accidental death is stairs. While stair deaths are well back of automobiles, they are far ahead of “drownings,…