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…
Riskczar Haiku #1
This is Riskczar’s first risk management-related haikus. Riskczar Haiku #1 A referendum? You really want debt default George Papandreou?
Evacuating the Building Because of a Zombie Infection
To be read in association with the post: “Tips on writing a zombie evacuation memo“. There are many reasons – including fire or bomb threats – that require us to evacuate the building but it is equally important that we prepare…
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.…
Riskczar Comics – The CEO and the risk report
Here’s my first crack at an illustrated view of risk management in the world today. If you would like to see more of these please leave a comment at riskczar.com or @riskczar (as I probably have about 20 more ideas…
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…
They will always find a way to screw you
I worked about six shifts at a Burger King in a shopping mall when I was in my teens. I quit because I didn’t care much for wearing the brown pants and hairnet. On my final night, the closing shift,…
There’s risk in relying on risk managers
Andrew Hill from the Financial Times writes there’s risk in relying on risk managers. He also notes that despite Carsten Kengeter’s assertion: “We will not rest until we have controls that are as watertight as possible”, we all know that…
CEO Oswald Gruebel reacts to UBS fraud [humour]
Here is a reenactment of how UBS CEO Oswald Gruebel reacted when he learned about the $2 billion fraud. (That is Colin Firth portraying Gruebel on the left.) http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DxJvGE7Vvd4M