Matthew Leitch - author of Working In Uncertainty

Matthew Leitch, educator, consultant, researcher


OVERVIEW

Real Economics and sustainability

Reasonable Influence

Self-management

Mathematics

Psychology and science generally

Management in uncertainty

OTHER MATERIAL
 		 

Working In Uncertainty

Management in uncertainty

For over a decade I wrote energetically about management, uncertainty, risk, control, and auditing. My first book, Intelligent internal control and risk management, was published by Gower and I also wrote A handbook of risk mathematics, aimed at auditors, which was published by Wiley.

Despite my efforts, corporate risk management has hardly advanced since I started writing and the current hype about ‘AI’ will make no difference. This means that much of what you can read below is still at or ahead of the cutting edge of corporate risk management. If you want some good ideas then dig in.

Some theoretical and high level work

Managing risk/uncertainty, whether doing it through your own skills or by changing an organization, is a valuable, creative challenge. It should not be a boring, low value, bureaucratical chore of filling in forms and making lists, fudging through formal conversations, and just trying to make someone else happy.

If you want to improve risk/uncertainty management in an organization there are at least three main approaches to consider:

  1. Improve the risk management behaviour of individuals (mainly through nudges, coaching, training, rewards, selection, and promotion).

  2. Improve the ways of working used in the organization for relevant activities such as planning, design, and other decision-making, through a wide variety of changes and implementation arrangements.

  3. Introduce separate processes dedicated to managing risk or reviewing risk (often remedial or for independent review).

Developing your skills

In most situations we have limited control and knowledge, so our skill in dealing with this problem is relevant. Often, that skill is crucial. This page links to resources to help you develop your own skills. If you are young and without much life experience this could be particularly worthwhile, but I think anyone at any age can learn something from this varied collection.

The free resources include articles, self-tests, and case studies. I also provide a link to my book about risk mathematics.

For several years I have been using scenario-based tests to understand how we think in key situations at work where uncertainty/risk is important and I have seen huge differences between individuals. Most people give sensible responses in most situations. Some people are very wise and a safe pair of hands. Others I would be scared to put in charge of anything even slightly important.

Perhaps more worrying is that there are some situations where most people prefer approaches that history or science show to be dangerous (e.g. because of a hidden psychological trap).

The scope for improving the way individuals deal with key situations at work is huge. It can make you a much wiser, more effective manager. It can make your staff wiser, more reliable, and more effective. It can provide some protection against a range of unpleasant, stressful situations that arise when someone has made a poor choice. In short, if you make better choices in situations at work where uncertainty/risk is important you can be more successful and less stressed.

General management situations

Marketing decisions

Some special jobs

More personal topics

Improving ways of working

The material below focuses on the second approach, that of (re)designing the ways people work so that they manage risk/uncertainty better. There are many ways to improve ways of working but the starting point is to realise that uncertainty is only one factor driving your choices of working method.

Running improvement projects

Sorting out the documentation

Ideas for improvements

Guidelines for managing uncertainty/risk:

Other ideas:

Some inspiring case studies:

The book


A huge source of technical ideas:

Intelligent internal control and risk management, a book by Matthew Leitch

At the moment there is no book called Working In Uncertainty that explains the perspective. However, my first book has a lot of useful material in it. Staying within the risk control perspective and language it extends the concept of a ‘control’ and integrates risk management with internal control in a simple way. What this book calls ‘intelligent controls’ are typical of the changes to core management activities that improve performance in uncertainty. Part 2 is a collection of 60 controls that most organizations should use much more, including many intelligent controls.

Interview with Jonathan Norman of Gower

Jonathan Norman is the publisher at Gower who encouraged me to write my first book. In these very short videos he is asking me about some key themes in the book. Gower wanted to make very short videos, so our conversation was edited down to these two.

Part 1.

Part 2.

Getting beyond Risk Listing

Managing risks is not the same thing as making a list of risks and then trying to do something about them. (One of my surveys confirms almost everyone agrees on this point, so probably you do too.) Until the early 1990s the idea of listing risks was virtually unheard of, while a huge amount of work had gone into developing better ways to make decisions, make plans, and do design under uncertainty. The Risk Listing idea has been promoted strongly by some powerful groups and now dominates thinking about risk in some specific areas, notably: corporate regulation, audit, and project management.

This is a pity because you probably would prefer to be doing something else (almost everyone would according to my surveys). Pushing this unpopular bureaucracy has blighted the working lives of countless thousands of auditors, corporate risk managers, and project risk managers, to say nothing of the vast army of other managers pushed to go through this tedious procedure. Yes, it's better than nothing, sometimes. But that's not enough is it. Almost nobody who does Risk Listing chose that method freely and almost all who do it would opt out if they were given a choice.

The problem of Risk Listing:

Sarbanes-Oxley compliance:

The problem of ‘risk appetite’

Surveys:

Most of these surveys explore the preferences people have for risk management and collectively their results destroy the myths that Risk Listing is popular and hard to move on from.

Auditing






Made in England

 		 

Words © 2025 Matthew Leitch