Michele Wucker coined the term “Gray Rhino” for highly probable, high impact crisis events. She offers practical psychological strategies that overcome problem solving inertia. Her TED talk has earned 2+ million views and the book sold 300,000+ copies in China. New for 2020-2021 is You Are What You Risk.
Michele Wucker’s Speech Topics:
Re-Shaping Your Risk Relationship: (Based on 2021’s Book You Are What You Risk)
A New Way to Think about Uncertainty and Change
Is sitting still or making a bold move the bigger risk in business and life? Do you see opportunity where a colleague sees danger? Do you look before you leap or just take the plunge? When you see an obvious problem, do you face it head on or do your best to ignore it? These questions shape every choice you make and every risk you take. Recognizing why you answer them the way you do can help you to make better decisions in your career and life. Understanding how those around you see and respond to risk will help you to better connect with your clients and collaborate with colleagues.
In this talk, you will learn about some of the surprising reasons —like what you had for lunch or the mix of people in the room— that affect how people see and respond to the risks around us, and put that knowledge to work for you. Recognize how risk stereotypes can trip you up. Understand the feedback loop between your personality and habits, your workplace culture, and the risks you can and cannot control. Finally, learn how to build on your strengths and when to turn to others to optimize your risk relationship.
This program is perfect for:
- Teams seeking to improve group dynamics and performance
- Boards evaluating risk governance
- Strategic planning groups looking to optimize risk decisions
- Financial advisers working with clients of various risk profiles
Gray Rhino-Proofing Your Future (Customized)
Gray Rhino events are highly probable, give clear warnings and have high impact. Yet all too often, leaders fail to plan for, recognize, or respond to obvious dangers, whether personal, organizational, civic, or global. Successful organizations identify and confront Gray Rhino threats instead of letting themselves be trampled. Michele’s provocative talk lays out a framework for recognizing Gray Rhinos and the pitfalls and opportunities at each of their five stages, from denial to action –not just to avoid highly obvious dangers, but to see opportunities where others do not. She customizes each talk to your industry or organization’s needs. In the workshop version, she applies her five-stage gray rhino analytical framework to facilitate reflections and conversations leading to actionable strategies that turn challenges into opportunities. Topics have included climate change, industry disruptions, re-skilling, and personal leadership development.
A Double Gray Rhino: The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Future of Work
The age of automation and artificial intelligence is here, with profound implications that decision makers ignore at their peril. Businesses must adapt to disruption or perish; workers must prepare for dramatic change; policy makers must provide an ecosystem to ease a difficult transition; and workers must adapt. What are the most dangerous pitfalls —and hidden opportunities- in this obvious but poorly understood “gray rhino” threat? And how can stakeholders respond? This talk provides a framework for developing innovation strategies in a time of uncertainty.
Michele Wucker’s Bio:
An award-winning global thought leader with experience in strategy, immigration policy, finance, globalization, turnarounds, and crisis management, Michele Wucker draws on three decades in media and non-profit management and policy development. Her third book is THE GRAY RHINO: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore, which grew out of a presentation at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland in which she coined the term “gray rhino” for highly probable, high impact crisis events. The book has received praise from business, policy, and thought leaders around the world and influenced policy debates at the highest levels. Her books sold 300,000 copies in China – well before the Covid-19 outbreak. Michele founded Gray Rhino & Company in 2015 to help leaders and organizations to identify and strategize responses to gray rhino risks that are neglected despite -and all too often because of- their size.
Debuting in 2021, her book You Are What You Risk shares insights, practical tools, and proven strategies that will help readers to seize ownership of and make better choices about risks big and small. Wucker shows how the new science of risk personality is beginning to shape businesses and finances and offers a path forward, drawing on examples of activists, businesses and countries seeking to create a healthy risk ecosystem that supports creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship in communities, organizations and the planet.
Wucker’s profiles and research help to answer important questions: Why are some people good at averting crises at work but a mess in their personal lives? Why are we more likely to take chances when we are part of a group than when on our own? Are we born with our risk attitudes or do we pick them up along the way? What is the right amount of uncertainty to live with? The answers will surprise and challenge us – and make us think and act differently.
Michele has been recognized as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and a Guggenheim Fellow, among other honors. Her previous leadership positions include Vice President for Studies at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs; President of the World Policy Institute, which she re-launched in 2007 in a dramatic turnaround; and Latin America Bureau Chief at International Financing Review. She also has taught master’s students at the School for International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, of which she is an alumna. An engaging keynote speaker, moderator, panelist, and facilitator, she has delivered presentations in 16 countries on five continents.
