Although there can be an infinite number of reasons for an organization to evaluate its risk and performance management, two main reasons that apply across-the-board include: You need to understand where your organization stands in order to plan where it should go. Executives want to know if what’s in place or being done is adding...

You are working hard to help your organization build an effective enterprise risk management program. You’ve spoken with all the business units, identified their significant “risks” and assessed them, come up with numerous risk registers, developed detailed risk reports for executives, and so on. Yet, people still don’t seem to see the value. Why? Why...

There’s no doubt among risk professionals… ISO 31000 and COSO are the two leading risk management standards in the world today. I previously discussed the fundamentals and background of each standard – check out the separate articles on ISO 31000 and COSO. As promised, the purpose of this article is to compare and contrast each...

In my popular article on traditional vs. enterprise risk management, one distinct difference is how traditional risk management assesses risk from only one-dimension or point-of-view. In most cases, the use of a one-dimensional view is strongly connected to insurable risks and determining the potential impact or loss from a particular event. In the original article,...

Upon reviewing a report from NC State discussing top risks for 2019, both Carol and I were surprised that an economic downturn was pretty far down the list of concern for executives. (As a quick side note, neither one of us are doomsday people thinking the sky is perpetually falling…) I know nobody wants to...

I recently asked of fellow risk professionals, “What is your single biggest challenge when it comes to ERM implementation?” What do you think the answers were? Maybe figuring out how to assess risks? Maybe integrating with strategy? Or aggregation of risks? Nope. Tone at the top! Yes, the executives and how they convey their thoughts...

A recent Business Insider article on Uber’s self-driving car incident goes in-depth into the culture of the company. Uber has been going through changes for over a year, beginning with the CEO being fired in 2017 amid charges of sexual harassment claims throughout the company. Uber has been focused on developing a self-driving car in...

If the popularity of my article from early 2017 outlining risk response strategies is any indication, organizations spend a lot of time thinking about the best way to address a particular risk. This popularity is the reason why I want to give risk professionals a more thorough understanding of each of the 4 response strategies…avoid,...

What makes Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) so different from traditional risk management? Nine times out of ten, this question is the first one I get when speaking with organizations about their risks. Whether they know it or not, everyone in an organization from the janitor to the CEO engages in “risk management” of one sort...