In Pursuit of Foresight

Many inquiry reports blame management for their failures of foresight. These reports are based on the premise that, with a little more thought, these oversights, and so the crisis, would have been avoided. Is it really that simple? The important question is whether, without hindsight, it would have even been possible to identify the actual factors that lead to the failure. This book explores this issue as a practical problem.

The book takes Barry Turner’s Disaster Incubation Theory as its central theme. The first chapter explores the way Turner structured his theory and the way it has been used, before re-imagining it as a way to fostering foresight. The next three chapters examine key issues in detail. They explain why Turner's model was chosen, outline the issues that need to be considered when seeking to prevent such failures and how to use the proposed frameworks. Chapter 5 examines the lessons learnt from this study and, in particular, looks at the mental approach required when seeking such foresight. Finally, Chapter 6 provides a fully worked example. It uses work by Frank Stech who has applied Turner's theory to a past case.

Crises occur everywhere and we continue to struggle to avoid them. In this book Mike Lauder provides executives with thinking tools to help them avoid missing the warning signs of their next crisis.

Dr Mike Lauder MBE has worked in risk management for the last 30 years. He is now an independent researcher and a visiting fellow at Cranfield School of Management, where he undertook his doctorate studying risk governance and the process, outcomes, effectiveness and efficacy of public inquiries. He has a wide range of experience in this field covering his time in the military and as a consultant. He has practical experience of risk management as a military engineer, including work in bomb disposal and as a security specialist. He has worked in both construction and procurement project management and has wider experience of logistic operations and corporate financial planning. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and has published in Risk Management Professional, the magazine of The Institute of Risk Management.