Risk: A User's Guide

Product Description
From the bestselling author of Team of Teams and My Share of the Task, an entirely new way to understand risk and master the unknown.
Retired four-star general Stan McChrystal has lived a life associated with the deadly risks of combat. From his first day at West Point, to his years in Afghanistan, to his efforts helping business leaders navigate a global pandemic, McChrystal has seen how individuals and organizations fail to mitigate risk. Why? Because they focus on the probability of something happening instead of the interface by which it can be managed.
In this new book, General McChrystal offers a battle-tested system for detecting and responding to risk. Instead of defining risk as a force to predict, McChrystal and coauthor Anna Butrico show that there are in fact ten dimensions of control we can adjust at any given time. By closely monitoring these controls, we can maintain a healthy Risk Immune System that allows us to effectively anticipate, identify, analyze, and act upon the ever-present possibility that things will not go as planned.
Drawing on examples ranging from military history to the business world, and offering practical exercises to improve preparedness, McChrystal
illustrates how these ten factors are always in effect, and how by considering them, individuals and organizations can exert mastery over every conceivable sort of risk that they might face.
We may not be able to see the future, but with McChrystal’s hard-won guidance, we can improve our resistance and build a strong defense against what we know—and what we don't.
Review
Praise for Risk:
“An absolute masterpiece on the subject of risk! Brilliant and highly entertaining, this book is essential reading for every leader, regardless of age or experience.”
—Admiral William H. McRaven, U.S. Navy (Retired)
“A brilliant user’s guide that demonstrates how managing risk is about
how we lead, rather than getting mathematical equations right. Fundamental reading for any leader looking to understand and strengthen their team’s Risk Immune System.”
—Annie Duke, bestselling author of Thinking in Bets and How to Decide
“General McChrystal is swiftly becoming our most important leadership voice. Measured, meticulous, and filled with practical, pragmatic wisdom from both war and peace, his clear-eyed, unsentimental guidance cuts to the heart of our precarious existence. A must-read leadership bible for troubling times.”
—James Kerr, bestselling author of Legacy
“An essential playbook on mastering all dimensions of risk. For soldiers, educators, CEOs, entrepreneurs, government leaders, and everyone in between, the general captures, with precision and clarity, how staying risk fit can unleash your team’s maximum potential.”
—Keith Krach, former under secretary of state, chairman and CEO of DocuSign and Ariba, chairman of Purdue University Board of Trustees
About the Author
Stanley McChrystal retired in July 2010 as a four-star general in the U.S. Army. He was Commander International Security Assistance Forces - Afghanistan. He had previously served as Director, Joint Staff and Commander Joint Special Operations Command. The author of
My Share of the Task,
Team of Teams, and
Leaders, he is currently a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and the cofounder of McChrystal Group, a leadership consulting firm.
Anna Butrico graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in English after spending time at St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford. She joined McChrystal Group in 2018, where she has advised Fortune 100 companies and partnered with General McChrystal as his speechwriter. This is her first book.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Commander
It was the summer of 1965. I was ten years old, and in the weeks before my father deployed to Vietnam for another tour of combat, my parents took my five siblings and me to