Risk Quotes

“Communication: How we exchange information with others Narrative: How we tell others about who we are and what we do Structure: How we design our organizations and processes Technology: How we apply machinery, equipment, resources, and know-how Diversity: How we leverage a range of perspectives and abilities Bias: How the assumptions we have about the world influence us Action: How we overcome inertia or resistance to drive our response Timing: How when we act affects the effectiveness of our response Adaptability: How we respond to changing risks and environments Leadership: How we direct and inspire the overall Risk Immune System”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“The lesson boils down to this: hanging a Risk sign on offices is irrelevant if they lack the influence to shift organizational decision-making. Our structures are not effective in name alone—accountability and authority have to be operationalized to best posture ourselves against risk.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“The consequences of an external threat must always be calculated in the context of your life or your organization.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“There is a cost both to becoming overly focused on risk and to ignoring it. And the sweet spot between the two extremes moves with the circumstances around you.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“We can’t eliminate risk”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“Communication: How we exchange information with others Narrative: How we tell others about who we are and what we do Structure: How we design our organizations and processes Technology: How we apply machinery”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“Threat × Vulnerability = Risk”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“Time and again we see that the greatest risk to us as individuals, and to our organizations, is us.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“To study risk is to reconsider what we think we know about being prepared.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. —Sun Tzu, Chinese philosopher and military strategist”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“Too often our efforts to manage risk create further risks.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“the greatest risk to us—is us.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“Too often and to great cost, individuals and organizations fail to mitigate risk because they focus on the probability of something happening—instead of what they can do about it.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“In crisis, leadership is the unifying force that inspires and coordinates the efforts of many.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“If you’re a leader, and unless you can confirm others have the responsibility—you probably need to assume you do.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“If three people are responsible for feeding the dog—the dog is going to starve.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“Generals who flawlessly fought the last war typically lose the one they’re actually in—because conditions have changed and they haven’t.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“To be clear, the best leaders are not instinctively Machiavellian puppet masters, and leading by personal example remains essential and effective, but at the end of the day, leaders don’t actually do very much themselves—they help individuals and organizations perform. And they do this by acknowledging that every situation is different—and context is everything.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“The words of the French political philosopher Montesquieu get to the heart of the relationship between religion, economic models, and white supremacy: It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures [enslaved Africans] to be men; because allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“At the heart of southern biases stood an uncomfortable reality: southerners could not justify an economic model that was dependent on enslaved labor without being biased against the enslaved people themselves.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“In 1957, Vice President Richard Nixon, representing the United States at a ceremony celebrating independence for the West African nation of Ghana, approached a Black guest and asked him: “How does it feel to be free?” “I wouldn’t know, sir,” the man responded. “I’m from Alabama.”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide

“They couldn’t hit an elephant at that distance. —Major General John Sedgwick, immediately before being shot and killed at Spotsylvania Court House, May 9, 1864”
― Stanley McChrystal, Risk: A User's Guide