Decision Making / Foreword

Foreword

Risk management is a fundamental element of business whether it is in the private sector or government, civil or military. The minimisation of risk and the prevention of catastrophic failure in any business or project endeavour are central to the responsibilities of management at all levels within an organisation. Yet as Dr Alan McLucas so amply demonstrates in this book, catastrophic failure that could have been prevented continues to occur. In many instances, responsibility for failure can be sheeted home to management, either through failing to monitor risk, simply ignoring the situation as it develops around them or because they do not have the tools to monitor or manage risk effectively. In writing this book, Dr McLucas has provided leaders and managers with those tools.

The terms decision making, risk management, systems thinking and situational awareness are jargon to most of us – this book makes it clear what each of these terms actually mean. Since reading about systems thinking in Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline and Alistair Mant’s Intelligent Leadership I have been intrigued by the power and application of a systems approach to organisational and business issues, both in my military career and subsequently in the private business sector. In managing projects, addressing problems or re-engineering organisations, too often people focus on or tamper with individual factors and elements without realising they are part of a system or understanding their causal relationships on other parts of the system. This book clearly shows the inherent nature of systems and the effect of causal relationships, but more importantly he highlights that failure and tragedy can be averted through situational awareness and proper management of attendant risk. Situational awareness is a state of being which, through hard lessons, military forces have come to appreciate gives them a decisive edge in battle, and they place great effort on gaining that awareness. It is a great enabler to making decisions, gaining a decisive advantage, achieving success and averting failure whether it is on the battlefield, in managing projects or making decisions in the boardroom. Real life situations and problems are complex and dynamic. In coping with them, we must understand the context within which they exist, the nature of complexity, and how changes occur over time. The case studies detailed here provide a powerful insight into the value of situational awareness, the nature of systemic risk and how we might manage them more effectively than we have done in the past.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it is pretty useless unless the deductions drawn from it are implemented for the betterment of future situations. What makes this book so useful is that it not only presents us with a thorough understanding of the complexities of risk management, he provides solutions to overcome them. It develops, and thoroughly explains, a powerful and practical set of tools and techniques to enable us to identify systemic risks and then either take remedial action or implement an appropriate risk management strategy. Leaders and managers at all levels in any organisation need the skills explained in this book, it is their responsibility to understand and properly manage the systemic risks that are inherent in their business. They will be well served by the techniques so clearly presented here. Failure and tragedy arising from systemic risk will continue to occur, but they will be largely eliminated by those leaders and managers who have the moral courage to take action based on the understanding of systemic risks which comes with the reading of this book.