Risk

A User's Guide

By: Stanley McChrystal, Anna Butrico

Narrated by: Stanley McChrystal

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.


* This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF containing a chart and diagram from the book.

Critic reviews

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

A rehash on topic of risk but still of value.

In my humble opinion Risk is a great introduction in the topic. The book re canines most of what’s been written out there in the topic of risk but the stories told to illustrate the topics helps someone new to studying risk be able to grasp the concept in a way that will help them build open the ideas (nature of crisis and conflict) and the types of problems (structured and ill-structured) and how to plan and adapt those plans accordingly. Decision making exercises, pre-mortem exercises and after action reviews are all discussed with informative examples.

Despite the book being a rehash of the topic it is still a great resource for those new tot he topic. Policing (my profession) could learn much of value from this book.

Good nuggets however wants no risk

There are good things to pull out of this book, however when Gen. McChrystal uses examples of good responses to COVID he exults complete totalitarian lock downs like New Zealand and praises CA response. This would work. We can take away all risk by locking everyone up and becoming bubble boys. The real risk is trusting people with their own freedoms while doing all you can to reduce risk. Disappointed.

Easy read introduction to risk management

Quite basic introduction to risk management principles, easy to read and nicely supported by famous anecdotal evidence. The chapter on solutions is way to high level to be useful. The principles are quite obvious for an experienced risk professional. Good read, not particularly educational

Good Book About Risk by a Man That Knows About it

Truth in lending, I have the utmost respect for Stan McChrystal. This was a good book and covers multiple aspects of risk and mitigation. Some will not appreciate his commentary on modern events or even military culture and strategy, but it is hard to find flaw with the logic. Overall, an excellent book.

Good book if you are interested in Risk

General McChrystal does a good job of laying out how to look at risk. With hind sight he goes into the positives and negatives of multiple situations and shows how personal bias and other factors can influence your views of the world. He explains why a numbers based methods generally don't work. He explains why diverse teams should get better results.

And at the same time he is wrong about Afganistan, he is wrong about Covid-19. I mean he had access to the same government data that I had access to and his conclusions are 100% one political party is correct and everyone else is wrong. He is showing his personal bias to an extreme.