The Upside of the Downturn: Ten Management Strategies to Prevail in the Recession and Thrive in the Aftermath Review

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The Upside of the Downturn: Ten Management Strategies to Prevail in the Recession and Thrive in the Aftermath ReviewI took a scuba diving training course when I was a teenager so I could go diving with my brothers. Of the many helpful things I took away from that excellent course, one principle more than any of the others has found its way into every aspect of my life: "panic kills". The sudden economic changes we are going through now (and will continue to face over the coming months and years, despite rosy government predictions) too often cause us to react without careful thinking. We get the urge to do something! Anything! In order to get away from the catastrophe. But this kind of panic is exactly the wrong thing. Conversely, we can also get the urge to just sit down and wait to die. Also, a mistake and a more obvious one. But both are urges can be very strong and hard to override in order to do something more intelligent.
This book by Geoff Colvin can help you take a bit of time to rethink how you want to face this financial downturn. The Great Depression was awful for many families (including my parents' families), but for many others it created opportunities and many fortunes began during that crisis. This brief book shows you how to find a door opening instead of staring at the door that just slammed shut.
Colvin spends two chapters explaining how this downturn can present opportunities for you and your business and what the new global financial normal means. The ten principles mentioned in the subtitle are each given a chapter: 1) Reset your priorities, 2) Protect your people because they are a vital asset to your business, 3) Relationships are changing, so take charge of the change, 4) Take a fresh look at your business model - it might need to adapt to seize fresh opportunities, 5) Manage for Value, 6) Your customers have new problems so create new solutions to help them, 7) Don't panic and cut prices; have some courage, 8) Increase your operational discipline and get healthier faster, 9) Take a deeper look at all the risks your company faces, 10) Spend time on growing yourself.
The last chapter talks about how you should operate in good times to be ready for the next sudden downturn.
Colvin has lots of helpful insights and good arguments for the principles he lays out. He uses examples from the real world to illustrate his points as well as his own persuasive arguments. Again, this isn't a big book or a major work of business philosophy. However, if recent events and your gaze into possible futures leaves you feeling anxious and queasy, this book might be just the kind of think to settle your stomach and help you think through your situation so you can get yourself pointed in a confident direction and begin moving forward again.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
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Enterprise Risk Management: Today's Leading Research and Best Practices for Tomorrow's Executives (Robert W. Kolb Series) Review

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Enterprise Risk Management: Today's Leading Research and Best Practices for Tomorrow's Executives (Robert W. Kolb Series) ReviewA new book on Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) has arrived in a rapidly filling field. What should we make of it? Is it a threat (i.e. does it only muddy the already turbulent waters after putting a charge on our wallets and bookshelves) or is it an opportunity (i.e. something that is good for the growth of the discipline and its practitioners)? Is it minor league, major league or world champion?
Quantitatively, it has two editors, Betty J. Simkins, a US business and finance academic, and John Fraser, a Canadian senior executive practitioner. It runs 577 pages which includes a comprehensive index and contains 26 chapters, written by 30 contributors and several panellists. It is divided into six parts (Overview; ERM Management, Culture and Control; ERM Tools and Techniques; Types of Risk; Survey Evidence and Academic Research; Special Topics and Case Studies) and features a convenient chapter format comprising of an argument, conclusions, notes and references.
According to the book's subtitle: Today's Leading Research and Best Practices for Tomorrow's Executives, it is intended to be read by up-and-coming managers with their sights set on the C-Suite. I would broaden that audience to experienced practitioners, curious students of all organizations, and academics who have an interest in this fascinating and often misunderstood discipline.
Qualitatively, it is honest, unpretentious and well written and edited, qualities that are not always honoured in the field of managing risk. Moreover, with almost three dozen perspectives (including the panellists) you can be assured that you are not being inflicted with only one person's opinion. As a keen student of risk management, I appreciated the nicely balanced approach - a nuanced blend of concepts and practice - which passes from the contributors through the skilful hands of the two editors. I particularly liked the emphasis on risk culture - and not just the usual nostrums about "the tone at the top" or "management buy-in". I have come to gag at those facile clichés and will take a full star off any review of books that rely on them. In several chapters dedicated to organizational culture, the contributors dig below the popular veneer to penetrate one of the most challenging prerequisites of ERM - a healthy, coherent and robust organizational attitude and ethic towards risk. Of course, there is always more to drill, but this is at least a credible insight beyond the penetrating insights into the obvious that so often ricochet around ERM conference halls.
Although I thought I'd seen them all, I also appreciated that a number of useful tools were laid on the table. To be sure, there is a point to be mooted here and a claim to be challenged there. For example, the notion of risk appetite and tolerance, while treated by several contributors at length, leaves the reader wondering why such an important subject has never been able provoke a consistent definition, let alone treatment by practitioners. These quibbles aside, the scope of topics addressed here is impressive, spanning lofty and arcane topics like strategy, finance and reputation, as well as gritty techniques like running risk assessment workshops and plotting the results. Midway through the book, there are some pithy risk management insights from Warren Buffet that many investors would agree is worth the price of the book alone.
Like all worthwhile books, this one is best read critically, reflected deeply upon and discussed thoroughly with knowledgeable or interested colleagues. To be sure, risk management is risky - that is to say, mishandled like any tool, machine or weapon, it will likely hurt you and others. Understand and embrace its principles and respect its limitations and risk management can be an intriguingly wise counsellor. This book is an excellent investment for anyone who cares deeply about the risks to their organization. Perhaps some of the executives who are in jail or facing prosecution for mismanaging their enterprise risks will find it offers advice too late in the game to make any difference. For the rest of us, this book can provide useful prescriptive advice that might otherwise take a lifetime of costly trial and error to acquire. In my view, it is a first class job and well worth the price.
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