Since the first edition of Managing the Unexpected was published in 2001, the unexpected has become a growing part of our everyday lives. The unexpected is often dramatic, as with hurricanes or terrorist attacks. But the unexpected can also come in more subtle forms, such as a small organizational lapse that leads to a major blunder, or an unexamined assumption that costs lives in a crisis. Why are some organizations better able than others to maintain function and structure in the face of unanticipated change? Authors Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe answer this question by pointing to high reliability organizations (HROs), such as emergency rooms in hospitals, flight operations of aircraft carriers, and firefighting units, as models to follow. These organizations have developed ways of acting and styles of learning that enable them to manage the unexpected better than other organizations. Thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition of the groundbreaking book Managing the Unexpected uses HROs as a template for any institution that wants to better organize for high reliability.

This book is based on the findings, issues and questions related to an ongoing decade-old research project named the Innovation Lab (www.innovation-lab.org). The research project focuses on discontinuous innovation in more than thirteen countries, most of which are European, and provides useful insights into its different challenges. It also raises several questions related to the subject, some of which are: how do firms pick up weak signals on emerging — and possibly radically different — innovation? What should firms do when these weak signals hit their “mainstream” process? What are the criteria for allocating resources to a strategic innovation project? What actions should firms take to avoid being left out by the “corporate immune system”? How should firms organize projects that often break existing rules and require new rules to be created?This book attempts to provide answers to the above mentioned questions by gathering information from the research project and also from firms that have tried exploring various ideas, models and insights to tackle discontinuous innovation. Written in a simple and accessible manner, this book will be of interest to both practitioners and academics alike.

Sometimes unanticipated threats or opportunities create a situation in which work is required unexpectedly. On these occasions, such urgent and unexpected work demands an instant start, in contrast to the often lengthy processes of investigation, evaluation, development, selection and planning normal in businesses and public services before the start of a project. Managing the Urgent and Unexpected explores what is different managerially if work is unexpected, its implementation is urgent and an immediate start it is required. The authors draw on twelve cases ranging from the launch of the Freeview television system in the United Kingdom to the sifting and removal of the New York World Trade Center pile of debris following the 9/11 terrorist attack. They summarise how the response to each of these events was managed, demonstrate that opportunities may sometimes be created in the face of adversity and suggest how normal organizations can prepare to manage abnormal demands. Urgent and unexpected projects have to be rare in business or government to be economically and socially tolerable. And yet organizations can and should be prepared for the unexpected. The lessons offered here will help private and public organizations plan how to authorize and support future urgent work to take advantage of immediate new business opportunities or to protect or restore systems and services.

"Fire management, and forest and rangeland fuels management, over the past century have altered the wildland fire situation dramatically, thus also altering the institutional approach to how to deal with the changing landscape. Also, climate change, extended drought, increased insect and disease outbreaks, and invasions of exotic plant species have added complications to fire management on public and private lands. In an effort at a national campaign to deal with the overall issue of fire management, eight Federal and nongovernmental organizations met in Santa Fe, NM, for 4 days in May 2004 to explore cooperative efforts and alternative options. The "Managing the Unexpected Workshop" goal was to explore and possibly adopt the concepts of the "High Reliability Organization" to managing for unexpected fire events and plan for fire uses. This publication includes presentation material, discussion points, alternatives explored, and planning efforts."

The Manager's Bookshelf serves the needs of both current managers and students of Management. For professionals and students alike The Manager's Bookshelf provides the vessel for expanding knowledge and is the perfect tool to search for further insights in more direct routes of management.

In this book, interrelationships between more than 40 recent catastrophic events are explored, discussing failures of structures and machines, information technology, regulatory agencies, security designs, and more. The world is full of wonderful products and services that occasionally disappoint and even harm us. Unexpected Consequences: Why The Things We Trust Fail explores the reasons these failures occur, examining them from technological, human, and organizational perspectives. Using more than 40 recent catastrophic events to illustrate its points, the book discusses structural and machine failure, but also the often-overlooked failure of people and of systems related to such things as information technology, healthcare, and security. As the book demonstrates, faulty technology played a surprisingly small part in many of the scrutinized disasters. Author James William Martin finds cognitive factors and organizational dynamics, including ethics, are major contributors to most unexpected and catastrophic failures causing loss of life and extensive property damage. With that fresh perspective in mind, Martin is able to suggest remedies that address service failure and just may help prevent future disasters from taking place.

Risk management is no longer confined solely to risk management specialists. Stakeholders ranging from employees to investors must understand how to quantify the tradeoffs of risk against the potential return. The failure to understand the essential nature of risk can have devastating consequences. Globally renowned risk and corporate governance experts Michel Crouhy, Dan Galai, and Robert Mark have updated and streamlined their bestselling professional reference Risk Management to introduce you to the world of risk management without requiring you to know the intricate formulas and mathematical details. The Essentials of Risk Management is the first book to make even the most sophisticated risk management approaches simultaneously accessible to both risk and non risk professionals. It will help you to: Increase the transparency of your risk management program to satisfy shareholders, employees, regulators, and other important constituencies Keep on top of the continuing evolution of best-practice risk policies and methodologies and associated risk infrastructures Implement and efficiently communicate an organization-wide Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) approach that encompasses market, credit, liquidity, operational, legal and regulatory, business, strategic and reputation risks Navigate thorny areas including risk policies, risk methodologies, economic capital, regulatory capital, performance measurement, asset-liability management, and more Efficiently allocate limited corporate resources to comply with the new generation of risk regulation and corporate governance regulation As a non-risk professional or board member, you are being called on more than ever before to make sophisticated assessments of your organization's risk exposures as well as play a critical role in its formal risk management process. The Essentials of Risk Management tells you what you need to know to succeed in this challenging new environment.

For organizations to thrive, indeed to survive, in today's global economy, we must find ways to dramatically improve the performance of large-scale projects. Applying the concepts of complexity theory can complement conventional project management approaches and enable us to adapt to the unrelenting change that we ignore at our own peril. Managing Complex Projects: A New Model offers an innovative way of looking at projects and treating them as complex adaptive systems. Applying the principles of complexity thinking will enable project managers and leadership teams to manage large-scale initiatives successfully. • Explore how complexity thinking can be used to find new, creative ways to think about and manage projects • Diagnose complexity on a wide range of projects — from small, independent, short projects to highly complex, longer projects • Understand and manage the complexity of the business problem, opportunity, solution, and other dimensions that come into play when managing large-scale efforts Use the Project Complexity Model to determine the most effective approach to managing all aspects of a project based on the level of complexity involved.