Note: To avoid a potential conflict of interest, the Internet publications of our newsletters have been suspended sine die
as of April 2001.  Private copies that are not a solicitation for business are available on a request only basis by e-mail from info@cadmus.ca 

Our Newsletter:

Managing Your Public Risk
One Page, Once a Month

Month/Year
        Topics/Book Recommendation 

2001

• March 2001
  Dissent, Discussion, Debate & Dialogue
  The Magic of Dialogue: Transforming Conflict into Cooperation
  
  

• Febuary 2001
  Warning Systems: Friends or False Security?
  Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society
  

• January 2001
  Assumptions are the . . .
  Risk Management Reports

2000

• December 2000
  Commitment vs. Compromise
  Risky Business: Canada's Changing Science-Based Policy and Regulatory Regime
  

• November 2000
  Cow Vadis - Lessons Learned from the Mad Cow Disease Epidemic in the UK
  The Inquiry into BSE and variant CJD in the UK
  
  

• October 2000
  The Need for Loyal Dissent
  Exit, Voice and Loyalty
  

• September 2000
  Crossing the Rubicon of Risk
  Fundamentals of Risk Analysis & Risk Management
  
  

• August 2000
  The Politics of Denial
  What Asbestos Taught Me about Managing Risk
  Patterns In Safety Thinking
  

• July 2000
  The Enigma of Efficiency
  Is Rational Choice Under the Gun, too?
  The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency
  Deming’s Profound Changes
  

• June 2000
  Trust: The Glue in Our Society
  Social Trust and the Management of Risk 
  Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity
  

• May 2000
  Fear: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
  Driving Fear out of the Workplace;  
  Calculated Risk: Greed, Politics, and the Westray Tragedy;  
  Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: a History of Nazi Germany
  

• April 2000
  Public Consultation
  Risk in Modern Society  
  
  
• March 2000
  Statistics: Digital Deliverance or Deception?  Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos; 
  Misused Statistics (2nd Edition)
   
  
• February 2000
  The Systems Approach to Managing Risk 
  Polaris System Development; 
  Managing Risk: Systematic Loss Prevention for Executives; 
  Challenger Launch Decision
  
  
• Special Issue  
  28 January: 14th Anniversary of the Challenger Disaster
  Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA
  
  
• January 2000
  Healthy Organizational Culture 
  Seven Principles of Communication 
  Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents, 
  Human Error
  

1999

• December 1999
  The Qualitative Side of Risk 
  The Bible
  
  

• November 1999
  The Pros and Cons of Cost Benefit Analysis 
  Risk Decisions require Cost Benefit Analysis and Policy Input 
  Risk and Rationality: Philosophical Foundations for Populist Reforms
  
  

• October 1999
  Step 5 - Control 
  The Levers of Control 
  Levers of Control: How Mangers Use Innovative Control Systems to Drive Strategic Renewal
  
  

• September 1999
  Step 4 - Decisions
  Common Mistakes in Decision Making 
  Decision Traps: The 10 Barriers to Brilliant Decision Making and How to Overcome Them; 
  Risk Taking and Decisionmaking
  
  

• August 1999
  Step 3 - Solutions 
  Mitigation 
  Staying on your Toes, 
  Hostages of Each Other
  
  

• July 1999  
  Step 2 - Identifying Threats 
  Five Dangerous Thoughts 
  Power of Scenarios,  
  Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation
   

• June 1999 
  The Difference Between Loss and Risk 
  Five Steps to Risk Management
  Step 1 - Definitions
  Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA

Comments on Managing Your Public Risk  from our Subscribers
(Over 99.8% Acceptance Rate!  Of over 10,000 sent to date, we have received only 20 cancellations)

1. Very good stuff, and well written too!!!
2. I look forward to them every month.
3. Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been plagiarizing your material – it is excellent.
4. I always read them – please keep sending them.
5. Please include me in your monthly newsletter on risk management.
6. I pass my copy around to my colleagues – after noting all the good ideas.
7. Thanks for sending me your newsletters - they are intriguing, entertaining and informative. My boss asks me to make a copy for him as well.
8. This is terrific stuff - you write very well and very effectively.
9. Fascinating and certainly very concisely written.
10. Impressive to say the least.
11. Very impressive, Mike.
12. Your issue on Cost Benefit Analysis was bang-on. (see MYPR November and December 1999)
13. Excellent article [on fear in the workplace], Mike (May 2000)
14. I greatly enjoy receiving your fax letter and was impressed with the most recent one on trust (June 2000)
15. Even though I am not directly involved in risk, I find your newsletter provides interesting insights. Please continue to send it.
16. It is a very good mix of key issues and practical tips in one quick to read page.
17. Very focused and informative. I appreciate the citation of current literature (recommended reading) 
18. Please continue to send your newsletters to my new email address.  I find them informative and useful when talking to potential clients.
19. Thanks for MYPR - it is very stimulating.
20. I enjoy your newsletters. They are very insightful and informative.
21. I was reading some of your newsletters and came across [ the December 1999 issue]. It is true - the Bible is a timeless gift for managing risk.  Too many people are afraid to declare their faith in the workplace - I'm glad you are not.
22. I liked your [August 2000] issue about the Politics of Denial - there is a lot of truth in it.
23. [Managing Your Public Risk] is an excellent fact sheet.
24. Just got to reading [the August 2000]  issue, and could not agree more. Would love to have a similar piece focused on the high costs of "command and control" (i.e.- ego-driven) management. Based on several recent consulting experiences, I believe it is by far managers' preferred and predominant "style of choice." Such "emperors" usually lack the essential "clothing" knowing how to lead and manage people effectively. The "risk" is that of "shutting down" employees who dare speak truths. I think its THE reason such a high proportion of businesses fail between years 5 and 10.
25. Please sign me up for a subscription. I am most impressed with the quality of the books you are recommending. I am also amazed at how closely your subjects relate to what is going on in our organization!  Be advised that in Internet Explorer your web newsletters view and print fine: in Netscape they view fine but don't print well on the second page.
26. Hey -- I didn't know you had this website -- it's GREAT! And you're not as ugly as everyone says. I'm impressed, a really neat looking and informative site, congratulations.
27. Thanks for your newsletter. My experience has been that "loss" very frequently is not incremental, but sudden. I agree with your observations here (Sept 2000).
28. As an engineer for a city government, I have seen the truth in [your October issue].
29. Your website is terrific - the October issue a classic. Super!
30. A good comment in October. You raise an important point. Organizations should listen not only to their employees but also to other key stakeholder groups. This is easy to proclaim but far more difficult to do. An internal employee forum, an ombudsman, and confidential means of accessing senior management and/or the Board are all workable possibilities. But communicating interactively with suppliers, customers, communities and investors (including shareholders) is more difficult. Focus groups can work, but there can easily be some bias in their initial selection. Corporations tend to listen more to larger shareholders and influential institutional investors than to the smaller. Talking to them is far easier than listening to them!  In the area of risks, we need to describe more coherently what we know about the risks involved in any decision - the upsides and the downsides - to that each group will give its tacit assent to the decision, thus building greater confidence in the long-term future of the organization. Candid assessments of downsides may insulate an organization from excessive adverse reaction when something actually goes awry.
31. Thanks for your most recent note "The Need for Loyal Dissent". This is an excellent reminder for all managers, including myself. I read it with great interest and filed it in my "Special Articles" box.  Thanks again.
32. I found [the October issue] to be particularly apropos.  
33. I got your 1-pager [October] this morning . . . great as usual!  I sent a copy off to the President because at times our staff and executive fall into the cheerleader mentality instead of providing sober second thought.
34. As always, I enjoyed your [October] newsletter.
35. "Ethical Relativism" and "postmodern" thinking are prevalent today. In order for the "Loyal Dissent" you rightly describe in your October column, its adherents must base such dissent on the moral absolutes of the Bible.
36. A significant part of a recent discussion was not only the lying [commission] but also lying by omission [withholding the truth] which goes along with your October Newsletter.
37. Thanks for the interesting reading and references.
38. I like the [November] newsletter a lot... I just finished browsing a bunch of back issues on your Web site, and thoroughly enjoyed them.
39. Thanks, Mike, I would like to continue receiving [MYPR].  My son, who will be a PhD in economics, has also been enjoying your articles.
40. Your [December] "newsletter" is excellent, as usual. I can't imagine anyone being offended by your brief reference to a biblical example of commitment. I view it as both applicable and appropriate. And I applaud your references to individual responsibility necessitating a moral foundation and to risk management as being a "profoundly moral exercise." In today's world I would imagine that some would find your statements about individual responsibility and risk management being moral issues to be more offensive than the biblical reference. The waning presence of morality in so many of our cherished institutions (marriage, the family, our legal system, etc.) concerns me greatly. I perceive an ever greater acceptance in our post-modern culture of moral relativism and situational ethics. As we both know, without God and the word of God, there is no morality and anything goes (everything is permissible, regardless of whether it is beneficial). I believe that morality is the biggest stumbling block to acceptance and implementation of bona fide risk management in our culture. If risk management systems aren't based in morality, then there is no need to feel any guilt about risk management decisions. One decision is just as valid as any other and it is only a matter of opinion as to whether any given decision is right or wrong. Our culture needs to hear more of what you have written in this newsletter. My hope is that your readers will internalize it as well. Keep up the good work.
41. It continues to be refreshing to read your newsletter that is unlike so many other management newsletters that present concepts that are based largely on "pop" management concepts. 

42. Thanks for your fax copy [of the January 2001 issue.] I find your one-pagers most informative, especially the reference section.  

43. Our office used your [January 2001} issue on Assumptive Losses at a recent strategic retreat. I really appreciate getting your newsletters.

44. I admire your ingenuity, imagination and resourcefulness to come up with topics and subject matter for your monthly MYPR. Congratulations for another good one, Mike!!
45. Good one, Mike. Sometimes automated systems become installed to serve political ends (eg: "Yes we have an automated XXXX system." is used to answer a question from an insurer or enquiry) Unfortunately, as you suggest, there are too many "alarms" or no senior person in the company is held responsible....it is "delegated" to someone who is improperly trained or doesn't understand the significance of their duties.
46. Your last issue (February 2001) was gorgeous, Mike!
47. Your monthly news letter is great even if it only gets us thinking about the right things. 
48. Please include me on you list for getting MANAGING YOUR PUBLIC RISK. 
49. Enjoyed the message in your March MYPR, but had to snicker. We here in British Columbia are due for a provincial election and the [government in power], who have been in for the last 10 years, are displaying their total lack of knowledge of risk management and "crisp" communications. They have always been quick to dismiss them, or relegate them to a very low priority, and now they are reaping the benefits of their folly. Because of their ignorance (Oxford definition) and abhorrence of the concepts, they are appearing as being without any credibility.
50. Please provide me a copy of this bulletin by email and advise of any costs involved. 
    [ no cost - ed.]  Thank you PS: I read it with great interest - very informative - and yes you can teach old dogs new tricks.
51. If you ONLY KNEW how timely this [March 2001 issue] was? I think you might be surprised! Thanks, [they are] always a pleasure to receive and read!!
52. Thanks Mike - your newsletters are an interesting read - all our staff have enjoyed the last few editions! thanks!!
53. I enjoyed your March newsletter. [Your] ideas were helpful as I was asked to
    mediate a discussion about a business start-up. I had just read your
    newsletter that day.