The Board Member's Guide to Risk

“I wrote The Board Member’s Guide to Risk to be accessible. I want directors to talk more about, read more about, and have more confidence in, taking risk. Everything we do in life requires taking risk or we’re left with only a deterioration from the status quo. If we want to continue to serve those who rely on us in better ways, we want our organizations to be the best at taking risk that they can be. This book will get you started down that path or further your journey if you’ve already begun.” -David R. Koenig

All human organizations exist to take risk. Anytime we come together to try to serve some purpose or achieve some goal, we have assumed risks. If we didn’t, we’d never advance beyond the status quo. In fact, not taking risks is probably the single surest way to realize failure in the long-term as innovation, competition, and customer lethargy slowly eat away at any advantage we may enjoy today.

Good businesses take risk confidently. When we govern our organizations, we must welcome risk-taking in ways that are responsible and smart.

This book is not about risk management. That’s for the people in your organization to do. This book is about how to make boards and individual board members better at the governance of an organization’s risk-taking. This book is also like a travel guidebook to the ideas that help you to take risk well.

Finally, this book is also about recovery. As I finish my writing, the COVID-19 pandemic is just beginning its exponential growth in the United States and other places. We are responding, but many aspects of our economic life – sometimes the total economic life of some organizations – are frozen. How you think about and treat risk at the board level is going to impact how quickly your organization will recover from this.

Sample Endorsements

“This book is excellent. It’s exactly the right length, tone, and, content. To cover a subject as broad as risk in such a succinct manner is testimony to the author’s deep understanding of both the subject of risk and the role of corporate governance. While reading the book, it triggered my thinking on how the Boards on which I serve should be considering risk in a post-COVID virus environment. Building resilience, through Empowerment, Speed, and Trust was the biggest takeaway for me from the book. I look forward to sharing copies with my fellow Directors.” – Carol Gray, Board Member, IFM Investors, Board of Governors, Trent University, Board Member, Amex Bank of Canada

“The re-framing of risk in this book is really useful. Entire boards should read the book concurrently – so all are working from the same paradigm (or experience the same paradigm shift).” – Sarah Oquist, Chair of the Board of Directors, Woodlands National Bank, Board Member, Walker Arts Center, Adjunct Faculty Member, Mitchell Hamline School of Law

"This book is exceptionally well-crafted and genuinely insightful. I believe it will become the "go-to" guidebook about risk for board members." - Bartley J. Madden, Author, Value Creation Principles

"This is a great resource for board members, prospective board members, and organizations looking to add board members and structure to their boards. The writing is entertaining and clear and includes a brilliant distillation of your company’s risk down to one key element that I will leave for your readers to discover.” – Art Monaghan, co-Founder, Granite Equity Partners

"Books about risk normally make me feel like I’m drowning in an endless litany of risks, each one of which can pull me under. This book, by contrast, throws a lifeline. Several, in fact. It's written specifically to help Board Members, not to scare them into buying consultancy services. It’s relevant, useful, and practical." - Jon Lukomnik, Managing Partner, Sinclair Capital, co-Author, What They Do with Your Money and The New Capitalists