Crises are no strangers on campuses—whether the deaths of students, severe weather events, athletic wrongdoing, crime, or student or employee malfeasance. How leaders respond can save lives, strengthen the institution, and comfort the community—or compromise reputations and result in scandal.Risk management and readiness are not often at the top of the list of what presidents and their boards must do, but in a time of ongoing change, instantaneous communication, and media scrutiny, they risk their jobs and their institutional reputation if they do not heed the messages conveyed in this book. Gretchen Bataille and Diana Cordova, with extensive and varied experiences that include a university presidency, directing senior leadership programs, and counseling presidents and senior administrators faced with critical campus events – together with 22 presidents, seasoned leaders in higher education, and media experts – provide forthright, firsthand advice on preparing for and managing a crisis, as well on handling the emotional, and often long-term, toll that can result from dramatic events on campus. Through the examples of those who have successfully managed crises, this book provides expert insights and guidance on preparedness, assigning roles and responsibilities, and planning for contingencies ahead of time so that, in the moment, when there is pressure for immediate response that will be scrutinized by the media, by the public, and by the local constituencies, leaders can act with confidence.The contributors emphasize the crucial importance of ethical behavior, the need for clear protocols for how all employees should handle problematic issues, and the need for mechanisms that allow employees and students to report problems without fear of retribution. Creating an atmosphere of transparency, accountability, and ethical behavior isn’t something a leader does when a scandal strikes to protect a reputation; it’s what leaders must do to reinforce their good name every day.For senior leaders and board members not in the throes of managing a crisis, this book outlines what needs to be done to be prepared and offers extensive resources for further reading.

For decades, the United States has led the effort to stem the spread of nuclear weapons, both among potential adversaries and among its allies and partners. The current state of deterrence and of the nonproliferation regime, however, is open to many doubts. What happens if the nonproliferation regime should break down altogether? What happens if extended deterrence should fail, and allies no longer believe in the credibility of the U.S. nuclear umbrella? What happens when the world has not 9 but 11, 15, 18, or even more nuclear powers? This study explores how such a world might function and what it would mean for our present conceptions of deterrence, for the place of the United States in the international order, and for international order itself.

Big companies find it almost impossible to do new things despite their leaders knowing this may eventually be their downfall. Unthinkable shows why companies are like this and how they can do innovation better.

Executive leadership faces new vulnerabilities. Many leaders privately concede them, but few are willing to talk publicly about them. "Unthinkable" events since 2014 have revealed a new leadership fragility at the highest levels. And the pace of change in 2017 shows that the uncertainties are greater than ever. Is this the "new normal?"Thinking The Unthinkable is an investigation into why leaders have appeared more unable or unwilling than ever to anticipate the biggest issues of our time.In an era of "wicked problems" why are current leadership behaviours and culture apparently not fit for purpose? What are the causes of so many failures in policy and strategic forecasting? Are they human frailties? Or are they systemic failures to embrace smartly new realities?Through hundreds of interviews and conversations, Nik Gowling and Chris Langdon have analysed the deep new challenges to the human capacity of leaders at the highest keels to accept, understand, embrace then handle the extraordinary processes of change and disruption. This essential book draws on the candid responses. The findings are scary and disconcerting.

How Can We Commit the Unthinkable? Genocide: The Human Cancer was commissioned by the Institute for World Order in New York and supported by a grant from the Szold National Institute in Jerusalem.

The only book you will ever need to manage your organization effectively in challenging times. It is fast-paced, practical and cutting edge guide that equips managers, figuratively speaking, with tools to manage their most important resources in a results-oriented manner in times when there are macro and micro challenges facing almost every North American organization. This book helps you hold your constituents accountable for organizational results in an effective manner. It gives you effective methods of motivating each constituent on an individual level no matter how large the number of your direct reports is. It equips you with an almost scientific method of evaluating which risks to take a t what time and how to make those tough decisions. This book provides you a guide to setting organizational goals effectively and provides you a guide to achieving them that balances your short term triumphs with long term success. Finally this book provides you a guide to initiate, implement and perpetuate organizational change in a rapid-fire manner that is designed for the busy manager who is on the go and has no time for long winded dated ideas that lost their relevance with the end of the previous decade.

When detective Francis Dimaio, supervisor of the Pinkerton detective agencys Philadelphia bureau, read the telegram from Allan Pinkerton, ordering him to leave immediately for New York, he knew he would have to put off the vacation with his wife. What he couldnt have known was that he was about to open an investigation into the deaths of more than 1500 people. A few days earlier, former president Theodore Roosevelt had arrived unexpectedly at Pinkertons Broadway office. In his possession was a letter from his former aide and adviser, Major Archibald Butt. Butt, now the aide-de-camp for President Taft, had been returning to the United States on the Titanic after a round of diplomacy with the King of Italy, when he went down with the ship. In the letter, dated the day of the sailing, Butt wrote that a representative of the Italian Prime Minister approached him with knowledge of a stratagem to incite the world to the brink of war. Most alarming, the plot would involve the sinking of a passenger liner. The source of the tip further confided Titanic would be the logical target. Determined to uncover the facts behind the portentous warning, Roosevelt persuades Pinkerton to take on the case. Dimaio, a tenacious investigator whose resume includes tracking Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, accepts the assignment and quickly uncovers an elaborate insurance fraud involving Titanic and her sister ship Olympic. Working every angle, Dimaio discovers the fraud was double-edged, and as evidence begins to emerge that the plot is still in play, he and Pinkerton find themselves in a race against time with an ambitious financier, a ruthless agent from British Intelligence, and the cabal of powerful men working behind the scenes, hell-bent on seeing to completion their diabolical plans.

As we approach the twenty-second anniversary of the catastrophic collapse of the World Trade Center, one of the world's signature symbols of capitalism, Dr. Charles H. Thornton, a preeminent structural engineer, has written a book applying his engineering design principles from the construction of two of the world's tallest buildings: the twin Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (built 1999), and Taipei 101 in Taiwan, ROC (built 2003). Dr. Thornton has the insight and design expertise to finally set the record straight on what really happened on September 11, 2001. In the early 1960s, as David Rockefeller's sixty-story Chase Manhattan Bank Headquarters near Wall Street was nearing completion, David, together with his brother Nelson and Austin Tobin, the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, quietly, for the most part, launched a venture into real estate. None of them really had any experience or mandate to start or accomplish this by charter. Borrowing a page from The Power Broker, Robert Caro's biography about New York's Robert Moses, this cabal of capitalists conceived an ill-fated financial and real estate venture, the World Trade Center Corporation, which was responsible for an even more ill-fated design and construction process. The new established World Trade Center Corporation, led by two political and technical rogues, Guy Tozzoli and Malcolm Levy, violated all the rules set by national and local building codes, manipulated the adoption of a New York City building code three years before it was readily accepted by the New York City real estate and construction industry, and manipulated a malleable out-of-town architect and structural engineer, both of whom at the time of design in 1962 had never designed a building higher than twenty stories. Most consequentially, the corporation bypassed the checks and balances and processes of the New York City, New York State, and State of New Jersey building codes through the improper use of a compact from the 1789 US Constitution that a bistate agency was not required to comply with the code of either state. The die was cast and set for the worst terrorist attacks on two of the most vulnerable tall buildings ever designed and constructed. This was all accomplished without the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey ever knowing whether the buildings could survive a full floor fire. And as the record shows, they did not survive one.

LIFE LESSONS FROM THE BIBLE'S RULE BREAKERS

They've been hired to think the Unthinkable. But what happens when the unthinkable actually happens? After 9-11, best-selling author Alan Ripley joins a government think tank consisting of the most imaginative minds in diverse fields. Their job? Think of nightmare scenarios and crippling terrorist attacks so the government can safeguard against them. But what happens when the think tank folds, and the attacks start to happen? From Mark Sable and rising talent Julian Totino Tedesco.