YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World, is now available at your favorite bookseller. Please support your local independent bookstore.
The book is:
A Next Big Idea Club Spring 2021 Nominee
An AudioFile Earphones Award honoree (audiobook edition)
A Porchlight Books Editor’s Choice
YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: A Review by Anne Janzer
Q&A with Deborah Kalb
Grist: The World Is Getting Scarier
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 40 Books for Summer Reading
BookBits: Six More for the Investor’s Bookshelf
Practical eCommerce: 14 New Business Books for 2021
What drives a sixty-four-year-old woman to hurl herself over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Why are corporate boards paying more attention to risky personal behavior by CEOs? Why are some countries quicker than others to recognize—and manage—risks like pandemics, technological change, and the climate crisis?
The answers to these questions define each person, organization, and society as distinctively as a fingerprint. Understanding the often-surprising origins of these risk fingerprints can open your eyes, inspire new habits, catalyze innovation and creativity, improve teamwork, and provide a beacon in a world that suddenly seems more uncertain than ever.
How you see risk and what you do about it depend on your personality and experiences; culture and values; the people around you; and even unexpected things like what you’ve eaten recently, the temperature in the room, or the fragrance in the air. Being alert to these often-unconscious influences will help you to seize opportunity and avoid danger.
You Are What You Risk is a clarion call for a new conversation about our relationship with risk and uncertainty. In this ground-breaking and accessible book, Michele Wucker examines why it’s so important to understand your risk fingerprint, and how to make your risk relationships work better in business, life, and the world.
Drawing on compelling stories from risk takers around the world and weaving in economics and social psychology, Wucker bridges the divide between professional and lay risk conversations. She challenges stereotypes about risk attitudes, shows how the new science of “risk personality” is re-shaping business and finance, and reveals how embracing risk empathy can resolve conflicts. Wucker shares insights, practical tools, and proven strategies that will help you to make better choices, both big and small.
“There’s a huge need in the business world to better understand the human factors behind how we perceive and evaluate risks, and there’s no better guide than Michele Wucker. Drawing on the stories of compelling risk-takers, practical research, and proven strategies, You Are What You Risk treads essential new territory for executives who want their organizations to be innovative, creative, and industry leaders.” — Danielle Harlan, author of The New Alpha: Join the Rising Movement of Influencers and Changemakers Who are Redefining Leadership
“The world is complex. But if we can’t be aware of all things happening everywhere all the time, can we at least have a framework for understanding what risks loom large and small in our lives, and start to think rationally – as individuals, companies, governments, and societies – about how to respond? You Are What You Risk delivers that story, that framework, and that action plan.”
— Parag Khanna, author of Connectography and How to Run the World
“As Silicon Valley illustrates, risk attitudes and behaviors are at the heart of why organizations and economies thrive or head for disaster. In You Are What You Risk, Michele Wucker explores the dynamics behind individuals’ and companies’ relationships with risk, from personal experience to cultural values to policy ecosystems. Her original insights and practical recommendations will help readers choose healthy risk-taking over dangerous missteps in business, life, and the world.”
— Deborah Perry Piscione, author of Secrets of Silicon Valley and The Risk Factor
“Whether you’re an investor, entrepreneur, of simply trying to forge your career strategically in any field, you’ll benefit from Michele Wucker’s innovative, clear-eyed approach to taking wise risks and navigating uncertainty. This book will help you to get from ordinary to extraordinary.” — Laura Huang, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Author of EDGE: Turning Adversity into Advantage