I appeared on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight April 20th talking about THE GRAY RHINO and why the elephant in the room and the black swan needed a more dynamic companion: “I felt that the language need something much, much more active, something that gave us a choice, that recognized how hard it is to deal with something – sometimes because it’s so big.”
Watch the interview and read an excerpt HERE.
I’m delighted to share that The Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore is an Editor’s Choice at 1-800-CEO-READ.
“Michele Wucker’s book is more than just a clever metaphor, though; It is a carefully crafted argument in favor of concerted action in the face of our biggest challenges and most obvious dangers,” writes Dylan Schleicher. “And it can do more for business leaders, policy makers, and individuals than helping them avoid catastrophe, because learning to embrace rather than ignore a looming threat can transform it into an opportunity. Not only can we avoid being trampled, we can learn to ride Gray Rhinos into previously uncharted territory and unprecedented growth in our personal lives, in business, and in society.
It’s time to pay attention to “gray rhinos,” says policy expert Michele Wucker.
Parker Richards interviewed me for this piece in the New York Observer, published April 2, 2016. “It’s not just a book, it’s a new way of thinking about the world’s problems,” he wrote. Read the full interview HERE.
Why do we choose to ignore pending doom? Good question! I had a great time talking with Justin Kaufman on his WGN Radio show, “The Download,” on March 31 here in Chicago, about THE GRAY RHINO, financial meltdowns, kicking the can, climate change, and the tricks our minds play on us with LISTEN HERE. That’s Michigan Avenue in the backdrop of the photo.
Here’s a brief interview with me talking about gray rhinos, done a few minutes after my presentation at PCMA Convening Leaders in Vancouver January 11, 2016,about how use the gray rhino concept to help your organization act on obvious dangers instead of avoiding them.
Sam Koebrich from cfr.org recently interviewed me about the expulsions to Haiti by the Dominican Republic of Dominicans 
of Haitian descent and recent migrants. “Deportations in the Dominican Republic,” August 13, 2015. Several people have noted that my approach to the issues avoid hyperbole and focus on constructive suggestions.
Acento republished the interview in Spanish in the Dominican Republic, prompting a series of tweets and posts to my public Facebook page from Dominicans who refuse to accept any criticism. At least one was outraged by the supposed international plot for “fusion” of the two countries sharing the island of Hispaniola -you know, the same plot that exists only in the mind of Dominican ultra-nationalists. But I don’t mind. They at least spelled my name right.
In the latest chapter in a long and complicated history of tensions with neighboring Haiti, the Dominican Republic is poised to deport recent Haitian migrants and expel Dominicans of Haitian descent who have not been able to prove that they were born there. This week, the deadline to apply for “regularization” passed, with many people saying they applied but have not been given proof, and many others having been rejected or having been unable to get past bureaucratic chaos.
National Public Radio’s Audie Cornish interviewed me June 17th, 2015, on All Things Considered about the history of tensions between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the subject of my first book, WHY THE COCKS FIGHT: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola. You can listen to the interview and read the transcript HERE.
For additional information about the history of the two countries and current efforts by Dominicans and Haitians to overcome the past, please visit www.borderoflights.org.
I highly recommend Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones, a novel about the 1937 massacre, and Julia Alvarez’s A Wedding in Haiti, a contemporary and nuanced account of relationships among Dominicans and Haitians.
On CNBC Squawk on the Street August 29, 2013, I raised the possibility of an intervention by Russia, Iran and/or China to secure a solution for Syria that would avoid a US military intervention. Here’s the clip.