Matthew Leitch, educator, consultant, researcher
Real Economics and sustainability
Psychology and science generally
OTHER MATERIALWorking In Uncertainty
The work of Matthew Leitch
Welcome. This website gives you access to most of my published work. It began with a focus on techniques for managing risk as an integral part of core management and other intellectual activities, such as planning, design, and decision-making. However, I have moved on and now the big effort is to complete three new books:
Real Economics in the 21st Century
A Handbook of Reasonable Influence
Self-management by reason.
The story behind Working In Uncertainty
This website has been consulted by many experts, including practitioners from leading companies, charities, and government departments, researchers, bloggers, and the authors of new standards and guidance. My research has even influenced the wording of key requirements placed on listed companies.
How did this happen?
The story has been of a gradual transition from the rather narrow ideas and services I learned about while employed by PricewaterhouseCoopers – all about risk management and internal controls, with lots of lists – to a much more open, technically more varied and natural perspective that also encompasses ideas and techniques from science and mathematics.
I've always worked hard to learn and to push for improvements, and along the way I've helped a lot of clients (e.g. BT, BP, and the Department for Communities and Local Government) written two books and countless articles, earned two Certificates of Distinguished Service from the British Standards Institution for my work on risk standards, and helped hundreds of university students through my lecturing and supervision.
But what has moved my thinking on more than any of this has been my surveys to find out what most people think on matters to do with risk and management. These have revealed that I'm not a maverick or a revolutionary. In fact, I'm mostly speaking for the overlooked majority.
Made in England
News
Forthcoming book on Real Economics
Yet another new book is underway called ‘Real Economics in the 21st Century’. It looks at how to have a better economy (and how individuals within it can have better lives) and move towards sustainability without unnecessary delays.
Forthcoming book on influence
A new book is underway called ‘A handbook of Reasonable Influence’ with a massive amount of advice on influencing with integrity (currently over 300,000 words). The book is designed as a pure ebook so that all this advice can be carried conveniently on a smartphone.
Forthcoming book on self-management
I have almost finished a new book called ‘Self-management by reason’ with rational advice on managing stress, motivation, and bad habits. These are, of course, topics that have been covered countless times by other people. The approach in my book is unusually focused on rational thinking and more than usually systematic.
The end of Southampton teaching
After more than a decade as visiting lecturer and dissertation supervisor at the Southampton Business School (University of Southampton) I have decide to stop.
Control Frameworks report
“Control Frameworks For Cryptocurrencies: An Initial Evaluation” was written by me and Alex Matanovic and published by Long Finance. It's another collaboration with Z/Yen.
New publication with Professor Michael Mainelli
“Auditing Mutual Distributed Ledgers (aka Blockchains): A Foray Into Distributed Governance & Forensics” was written by me and Michael Mainelli and published by Long Finance. It followed a symposium organized by the great team at Z/Yen for Long Finance.
New guidance from the Centre for Risk Research
“Directing risk management in organizations” is a new guide to overseeing risk management from the Centre for Risk Research at the Southampton Business School, University of Southampton. This is a fresh alternative to documents like COSO's ERM framework and the FRC's guidance on risk management.
Collaboration with Nik Silver
Nik and I have written “How does a risk expert behave?” together and it has been great to work with someone as interesting and intelligent as Nik. There's more from him on his blog: niksilver.com.
Breakthrough publication by IFAC
IFAC have published an important new paper called “From Bolt-on to Built-in: Managing Risk as an Integral Part of Managing an Organization” written by Vincent Tophoff (with some input from me and Grant Purdy). This does not feature the usual ‘risk management process’ and, instead, looks at how to tackle any decision in a better way with risk in mind. Vincent has done a fantastic job of keeping Risk Listing out of this document and the result is impressive. This is an important step in the right direction.
New presentation by Nik Silver
Nik Silver (niksilver.com) is a an interesting guy whose blog is worth visiting. After we had a chat recently he produced this excellent presentation. I particularly like the points later on about seeing the bigger picture and making process changes.