This one-day seminar is a lively program for individuals who have prior experience with risk management. Through presentations, group discussions, and case studies, we fundamentally shape how you think about risk management. The course is an opportunity for key decision makers to benefit from Glyn Holton's years of experience as a risk management consultant. By far, this is our most popular program.

Uncertainty is a part of risk, and where there is uncertainty, there are differences of opinion. Because stakes are high—companies and careers will rise or fall—a natural tension exists in any risk taking organization. Managed improperly, this can spin out of control, leading to discord and outright conflict.

Often perceived as undesirable, this underlying tension is good. If an organization is to effectively take risks it must embrace the tension and make it useful. Successful risk managers and executives recognize this. They harnesses that tension—channeling it through checks and balances—so it promotes sound risk taking.

Risk management is the process whereby an organization optimizes the manner in which it takes risk. It is not the province of a single individual or a single department. Everyone must cooperate in risk management. Each risk taking organization needs to actively design its own risk management strategy. In this one-day program, senior professionals work together to do just that. The program includes presentations, group discussions and case studies. Each case study takes a hard-nosed look at the challenges other firms have faced in managing risk—and how they have addressed them.

Together, participants formalize goals for risk management. They define roles for a risk manager and a risk committee. They explore strategies for addressing the organizational aspects of risk taking. They debate issues of:

group vs. individual decision making;
incentives;
accountability;
managing "upward" in an organization; and
conflict.

Most importantly, they learn of two competing models for risk management—which we call the "Wrong Model" and the "Right Model."

The Wrong Model is a default model. It is the intuitively obvious model that organizations gravitate toward if they are unaware of alternatives. It is the model that leads to:

conflict between the front- and middle-office;
breakdowns in communication;
sub-optimal risk taking;
damaged moral, and
in rare instances, spectacular losses.

By recognizing how the Wrong Model fails, we motivate the Right Model. This—somewhat counter-intuitive—Right Model fundamentally alters the interactions that shape how an organization takes risk.