Learning from Catastrophes: Strategies for Reaction and Response

Breakthrough, business-focused techniques for managing the growing risks of catastrophe, from world's leading experts.

- Indispensable 'extreme risks' guidance for decision-makers in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable.
- Powerful assessment models, decision-making techniques, and best practices for building resilience into any organization, public or private.
- Edited by the leading experts who recently introduced influential new techniques for managing extreme risks at the World Economic Forum.

Events ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the global economic crisis have taught businesspeople an unforgettable lesson: if you don't plan for 'extreme risk,' you endanger your organization's very survival. But how can you plan for events that go far beyond anything that occurs in normal day-to-day business? In Learning from Catastrophes , two renowned experts present the first comprehensive strategic framework for assessing, responding to, and managing extreme risk. Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem build on their own breakthrough work on mitigating natural disasters, extending it to the challenges faced by real-world enterprises. Along with the contributions of leading experts in risk management, heuristics, and disaster recovery, they identify the behavioral biases and faulty heuristics that mislead decision makers about the likelihood of catastrophe. They go on to identify the hidden links associated with extreme risks, and present techniques for systematically building greater resilience into the organization. The global best-seller The Black Swan told executives that 'once in a lifetime' events are far more common and dangerous than they ever realized. Learning from Catastrophe shows them exactly what to do about it.