Fighting with False Friends and The Deadly Mexican Butterfly

Shaun Ryles MBE, Director, Strategy and Resources, Right Stone Consulting

Overview

An increasingly globalised world has posed many challenges for the management and communication of risk. But what unintended consequences for organisations or nations flow from a narrow, localised view of risk? And although geo-political risks may be shared across a region, can their management be distorted by a lack of cultural fluency and a misalignment of priorities?

Using two case studies and a contemporary analysis of current organisational resilience paradigms, this year’s IRM Annual Lecture will illustrate the fault-lines that appear when organisations or nations fail to prepare for the eventuality that risks can migrate across borders or cultures. It will look at the role that national caveats on fighting troops had on reducing NATO’s effectiveness in Afghanistan and at how the current Mexican drug-related security situation is not entirely of Mexico’s own making.

Through reflections on both his extensive field experience and his academic research, Shaun will offer a provocative interpretation of the risk-related issues that both case studies provide the modern risk professional.