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  • November–December 2020
  • Article
  • Harvard Business Review

The Risks You Can't Foresee: What to Do When There's No Playbook

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Herman B. Leonard and Anette Mikes
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

No matter how good their risk management systems are, companies can’t plan for everything. Some risks are outside people’s realm of experience or so remote no one could have imagined them. Some result from a perfect storm of coinciding breakdowns, and some materialize very rapidly and on an enormous scale. These novel risks, as the authors call them, cannot be addressed by following a standard playbook.

This article describes how to detect the emergence of a novel risk (start by looking for anomalies and appointing “chief worry officers”) and then how to mobilize resources to mitigate its impact, deploying a critical incident team or empowering local personnel to tackle it.

Keywords

Novel Risks; Risk Management; Crisis Management

Citation

Kaplan, Robert S., Herman B. Leonard, and Anette Mikes. "The Risks You Can't Foresee: What to Do When There's No Playbook." Harvard Business Review 98, no. 6 (November–December 2020): 40–46.
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About The Authors

Robert S. Kaplan

Accounting and Management
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Dutch Leonard

General Management
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    • 2023
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    • 2023
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    Accounting for Carbon Offsets – Establishing the Foundation for Carbon-Trading Markets

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More from the Authors
  • Comparison of COVID-19 Hospitalization Costs across Care Pathways: A Patient-level Time-driven Activity-based Costing Analysis in a Brazilian Hospital By: Ricardo Bertoglio Cardoso, Miriam Allein Zago Marcolino, Milena Soriano Marcolino, Camila Felix Fortis, Leila Beltrami Moreira, Ana Paula Coutinho, Nadine Oliveira Clausell, Junaid Nabi, Robert S. Kaplan, Ana Paula Beck da Silva Etges and Carisi Anne Polanczyk
  • Accounting for Carbon Offsets – Establishing the Foundation for Carbon-Trading Markets By: Robert S. Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Marc Roston
  • Dr. Andrea Pusic, Video Supplement By: Robert S. Kaplan
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