From the Inside Flap
Corporate governance, decision making, and the management of risk have always been important activities within an enterprise. Recent corporate debacles have given these issues an even deeper meaning. In today’s volatile and complex business environment, corporate officers and senior-level executives need to rethink their perspectives on decision making, risk, and governance processes to ensure the survival and long-term success of their organizations.
In Corporate Governance and Risk: A Systems Approach, "Jack" Shaw, a former senior consulting partner and retired vice chairman of Deloitte & Touche LLP, presents a new and useful framework for making critical business decisions across the enterprise. With the help of professionals from the Enterprise Risk Service (ERS) practice of Deloitte & Touche, Shaw details a fresh approach to governance and risk that will allow you to develop new options, consider consequences–including those that may be unintended–and understand the potential risks and rewards of the decisions you make as a senior executive.
Based on Shaw’s long journey through the worlds of governance and risk, this groundbreaking book:
- Establishes comprehensive definitions of governance and risk, and their interrelationship
- Discusses the elusive and multi-dimensional aspects of governance and risk within the context of what he calls the extended enterprise
- Applies the concepts of Systems Thinking to governance and risk
- Introduces, explores, and explains the new approaches to decision making which he calls the Governance Model and the System of Governance
- Outlines strategy, execution, and operations–the major subsystems of the Governance Model
- Illustrates the structure, processes, and information which hold the Governance Model and the System of Governance together
- Provides personal guidance and direction as to how you can efficiently implement these concepts
Corporate Governance and Risk introduces a new framework for thinking about governance and risk as well as a process for its implementation. This book provides a unique perspective on this topic–taking you through the detailed steps required to understand and act upon what needs to be done in order for organizations to be more effective in this new world of governance and risk.
We are at the beginning of an exciting new era–one in which governance will become synonymous with decision making, and risk will be exceeded only by the potential for reward. Corporate Governance and Risk is a book that anticipates the new challenges of our times, and reveals an approach that will help you and your business dictate events, rather than be overcome by them.
From the Back Cover
Praise for Corporate Governance & Risk
"Leaders in all three sectors will find Jack Shaw’s new book an indispensable guide to decision making. When the old answers do not fit the new questions, Jack provides the concepts, the language, and the focus that governance and management require to be viable and relevant in an uncertain future."
–Frances Hesselbein
Chairman, Leader to Leader Institute
"Corporate Governance and Risk introduces a new perspective on managing organizational risk that is needed to thrive in today’s ever-changing environment, and will become the blueprint for high-performing organizations ready to alter their perspective on risk and discover unconventional wisdom."
–Leonard Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO, WellPoint
"Corporate Governance and Risk drives home the essential Druckerian principle that effective management is fundamentally a moral vocation. Jack Shaw’s perspectives, developed over a long and distinguished career as a management consultant, make clear that sound governance begins with the tone at the top."
–Steadman Upham
President, Claremont Graduate University
"In today’s business environment–with the Enron scandal and the crisis of faith in corporate leadership and with a dynamic and increasingly volatile external environment–it is more critical than ever that we safeguard our company’s reputation and ensure that we manage for risks appropriately and proactively. Traditional approaches to risk management consider only risks that are apparent and generally assume static conditions, rather than acknowledging that the world of business–indeed the world at large–is a very dynamic place in which the unexpected happens regularly. In Corporate Governance and Risk: A Systems Approach, John Shaw describes a systematic methodology for managing for risks in a dynamic setting that has been invaluable to me in structuring effective enterprise risk management at Washington Mutual."
–William A. Longbrake, Vice Chair
Enterprise Risk Management, Washington Mutual, Inc.
