How can leaders make better decisions when information is incomplete and circumstances keep changing?

In this RiskMasters — The Download, Angela McConville, former Chief Executive of the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), explores why organisational resilience depends on the ability to experiment, learn quickly and adapt without waiting for certainty.

Drawing on NCT's experience of transformation, Angela explains how the organisation adopted a test-and-learn approach, using small, low-cost experiments to explore opportunities before committing significant resources.

A particularly revealing example concerns an initiative that failed within just 10 to 15 days. Rather than treating the outcome as a setback, the leadership team celebrated what they had learned and moved on.

The distinction is important. Learning from failure does not mean accepting uncontrolled risk. It means creating opportunities to test assumptions, contain potential losses and make better-informed decisions.

For charities and other organisations operating under financial and operational pressure, this approach offers an alternative to lengthy transformation programmes that may struggle to keep pace with changing circumstances.

In this extract:

• Why leaders must become comfortable making decisions with imperfect information

• How small experiments can reduce uncertainty before significant resources are committed

• Why speed of learning can matter more than speed of execution

• How celebrating contained failures can strengthen organisational culture

• Why a test-and-learn mindset supports organisational resilience and continuous adaptation

This extract comes from my CPD-accredited RiskMasters conversation with Angela McConville, When Mission Meets Reality: Resilience and Leadership in a Transforming Charity.

🎧 Listen to the full episode of RiskMasters for the complete conversation on charity leadership, organisational transformation, decision-making and resilience.

What happens when the assumptions behind an important decision change?

In this RiskMasters — The Download, Grant Purdy explores why decision-making is fundamentally about resolving uncertainty and why organisations need to understand the assumptions on which their decisions depend.

Drawing on the work he developed with the late Roger Estall, Grant explains how good decisions begin with clarity about organisational purpose, the opportunity being considered and the outcomes being sought.

But a particularly important part of the discussion concerns assumptions.

Every decision rests on assumptions about the organisation and the world around it. Yet Grant observes that boards and executive teams rarely record those assumptions explicitly.

That creates a practical governance problem. If the assumptions behind a decision are not visible, how can leaders recognise when circumstances have changed enough to reconsider it?

The objective is not perfect certainty. Grant argues that decision-makers instead need to reach “sufficient certainty” to exercise judgement and act.

In this extract:

• Why decision-making involves resolving uncertainty
• The importance of purpose and desired outcomes
• Why every important decision rests on assumptions
• What Grant means by “sufficient certainty”
• Why boards should make assumptions explicit
• How changing assumptions can signal that a decision needs to be revisited

This extract comes from my CPD-accredited RiskMasters conversation with Grant Purdy on ISO 31000, risk management, uncertainty and better decision-making.

🎧 Listen to the full episode of RiskMasters for the complete conversation.

Has risk management lost sight of what it was originally supposed to achieve?

In this RiskMasters — The Download extract, Grant Purdy offers a provocative perspective on how the risk management profession has evolved and why he believes it needs to reconnect with decision-making.

Grant reflects on the different philosophies that developed around ISO 31000 and COSO ERM. He argues that while ISO 31000 had the potential to move risk management towards decision support, tensions remained between integrating risk thinking into normal management decisions and maintaining separate risk management processes, terminology and frameworks.

He also discusses a proposed revision of ISO 31000 around 2015 which, in his account, would have reframed the standard around helping organisations recognise and take account of uncertainty when making decisions. That more fundamental change was ultimately not adopted.

The discussion then moves beyond standards to the profession itself.

Grant questions whether risk management has become too focused on its own processes, documentation and terminology, including the difficulty practitioners still have in agreeing what the word “risk” actually means.

His central argument is clear: risk management should not become an end in itself. Its value should come from helping organisations understand uncertainty and make better decisions.

• Grant Purdy's perspective on ISO 31000 and COSO ERM
• Why integrating risk management with decision-making remains difficult
• The proposed rethink of ISO 31000 around decision support and uncertainty
• Whether risk management has become too focused on process and documentation
• Why definitions of risk continue to create difficulties for the profession
• Why Grant believes risk management should ultimately support better decisions

This extract is taken from the full CPD-accredited RiskMasters conversation with Grant Purdy on ISO 31000, risk management, uncertainty and better decision-making.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or at aevitium.com.

What was ISO 31000 originally designed to achieve, and how did the international risk management standard develop?

In this RiskMasters — The Download extract, Grant Purdy, who was directly involved in the development of ISO 31000, explains the origins of the standard and its relationship with organisational decision-making.

Grant traces ISO 31000 back to the Australian and New Zealand standard AS/NZS 4360, first published in 1995 and subsequently updated in 1999 and 2004. The objective was to bring greater consistency to different approaches to risk assessment and risk treatment while producing information that decision-makers could understand and use.

As other countries began adopting AS/NZS 4360, Grant and his colleagues approached the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) about developing an international standard. What followed was a four-year process of discussion and compromise as different countries brought their own perspectives on risk management.

Grant explains why the resulting ISO 31000 framework sought to integrate risk management and decision-making, but also why he believes this contributed to a distinction that continues to shape the profession.

In his view, different philosophies of risk management have subsequently developed. He characterises the ISO 31000 approach as increasingly focused on decision support, while describing COSO and IRM approaches as placing greater emphasis on risk identification, governance and reporting.

That distinction leads to a fundamental question for risk leaders: is risk management primarily a process for identifying and reporting risk, or should its ultimate purpose be to improve organisational decisions?

• The origins and history of ISO 31000
• How ISO 31000 evolved from AS/NZS 4360
• The original purpose of risk assessment and risk treatment
• Why risk information should support organisational decision-making
• How the international risk management standard was developed
• The role of compromise in international standards
• Grant Purdy's perspective on different philosophies of modern risk management

This extract is taken from the full CPD-accredited RiskMasters conversation with Grant Purdy exploring ISO 31000, risk management, uncertainty, risk matrices, governance and better decision-making.

Listen to the full conversation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or at aevitium.com.

How do leaders move from recognising a Gray Rhino to actually doing something about it?

In this RiskMasters — The Download, Michele Wucker, author of The Gray Rhino and You Are What You Risk, explains the five stages of the Gray Rhino framework and how they can help leaders assess where they are in responding to visible, high-impact risks.

The five stages are denial, muddling, diagnosing, panic and action.

Michele explains why diagnosing represents an important shift. Rather than simply acknowledging the risk, leaders begin asking how quickly it is developing, how significant it could become, what solutions are available, what resources are required and who needs to be involved.

The framework also considers where other stakeholders sit within those five stages. A response may depend on people who have not yet recognised the urgency of the risk or who lack the authority to act.

The conversation explores why panic can be a double-edged sword. It can finally create momentum, but it can also lead to poor decisions. Having a plan matters, but so do the mechanisms and decision authority required to implement it.

Michele also introduces the idea of a “crash of rhinos”, where several significant risks interact or arrive together, alongside smaller “baby rhinos” that may develop into larger threats.

• The five stages of the Gray Rhino framework

• How leaders move from recognition and diagnosis to action

• Why stakeholders may be at different stages of responding

• How panic can lead to action but also poor decisions

• Why multiple risks can develop into a “crash of rhinos”

The Gray Rhino framework provides a practical way for risk leaders to assess not only the risks they face, but how prepared their organisations and key stakeholders are to respond. Effective action requires diagnosis, planning, decision authority, and continued tracking and adjustment.

This extract is taken from the full RiskMasters conversation with Michele Wucker on the Gray Rhino, risk management, behavioural risk and strategic decision-making.

Listen to the full RiskMasters episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or at aevitium.com.

Risk culture, cultural differences, leadership, and risk management are closely connected to how people perceive and respond to risk.

In this RiskMasters — The Download segment, Horst Simon draws on his international experience to explore how cultural worldviews influence risk behaviour inside organisations. He discusses three broad perspectives, guilt versus innocence, honour versus shame, and power versus fear, and explains why organisations operating across cultures need to consider these differences when developing risk policies and processes.

The conversation also explores how generational differences influence attitudes towards work, organisations, mobility, and risk, creating another important consideration for leaders building an effective risk culture.

Listeners will gain insight into:

• How cultural differences can influence risk management decisions
• Why the same risk policy may be interpreted differently across cultures
• How cultural worldviews shape attitudes towards responsibility and consequences
• Why generational differences matter when building risk culture
• How global organisations can consider human behaviour within risk frameworks

This extract is taken from the full RiskMasters interview with Horst Simon on risk culture, people risk, leadership, operational risk, and the future of risk management, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at aevitium.com.