You Are What You Risk China Edition

The Chinese edition of YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World (Pegasus Books, April 2021), translated by Feng Yi and Zhang Liying, as “Gray Rhino 2: How individuals and Organizations Dance with Risk,” was published in September 2021 by CITIC Press Group to high praise.

The book is part of the Rhino Books imprint featuring high-profile business books by international authors, which was created in 2017 around THE GRAY RHINO: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore (translated as The Gray Rhino: How to Deal with High Probability Crisis).

Cover of white book cover with red simplified Chinese characters for "GRAY RHINO 2" and image of fingerprint superimposed on a rhino

From the publisher:
“The popularity of the author and the popularity of the previous book. “Grey Rhino: How to Deal with High Probability Crisis” has become a well-known, hotly discussed and widely used phenomenon-level vocabulary since it was published by CITIC Publishing House in 2017. “Gray Rhino: How Individuals and Organizations Dance with Risk” is not only an extension and supplement to the concept of “gray rhino”, but also a deeper and more microscopic exploration of the essence of “risk”. We cannot ignore the constructive significance of this book for every reader, enterprise, government, and country in the future. “Gray Rhino 2: How Individuals and Organizations Dance with Risks” will once again become a work of the era with great influence with its acumen, foresight and professional depth of content.”

Praise for the China edition of YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK/Gray Rhino 2:

SINA FINANCE Book recommendation: “This book is Michele Wucker’s new masterpiece.”

Wucker’s “Grey Rhino: How to Deal with a High Probability Crisis” allows us to improve our awareness and trade-offs in the face of political and commercial risks. Her new book reveals to us that individuals at risk, their risk personality, organization, and society’s dynamic feedback loop will affect citizens, organizations, and the government’s different perceptions, reactions, and response results to risks. Building a good risk ecosystem, establishing healthy risk relationships, and fairly distributing risks-related gains and losses, so that as many people as possible can live a better life, should be our principles and pursuit of understanding and weighing risks. 
— Wu Xiaoling (Executive Vice President of China Finance Society)             

??There are various gray rhino risks in the current society. Personal risks, policy risks, professional risks, economic risks, organizational risks and global risks are intertwined to shape our lives, work and the world. Wucker’s new book, based on the tremendous changes that have taken place in the world in recent years, deeply explores how we make our own choices based on our unique risk fingerprints, and how risk choices shape the relationship between individuals, organizations, and society, and help us inspire us. Work together to build a benign risk ecosystem to support the sustainable development of the economy and society.?
— Xiao Gang (Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference)  

??The great changes unseen in a century and the superposition of super-epidemics mean that this era is one of frequent occurrences of “black swan” and “gray rhino” events. To gain insight into the new laws of this era, we should peruse this new book by Wucker. This book is not only an extension and supplement to the concept of “gray rhino,” but also a deeper and more micro-systematic exploration of “risk,” which has constructive significance for individuals, enterprises and governments.
–Liu Yuanchun (Vice President of Renmin University of China, Economist)    ?

??We have entered an era of comprehensive, full-time, and global risk. Whether it is an individual or an organization, how to accompany risks and build a constructive relationship with them will determine their future. Wucker’s new book provides guidance and an operating system for this.
-Qin Shuo (China Commercial Civilization Research Center, initiator of Qin Shuo Moments of Friends)  

??Risk has become the norm in this era. The theme of Wucker’s new book is how to deal with the endless risks. There is no uniform standard answer, and people of different cultures, generations, and personalities have different views on risk. You need to understand your “risk fingerprint” first, and then exercise your “risk muscles.” This book is a survival guide everyone needs to read in the age of risk.
–He Fan (Professor of Economics at Shanghai Jiaotong University, author of “Variables“) 

??The big change that has not been seen in a century is also a big opportunity that has not been seen in a century. “Danger” and “opportunity” are always dialectical and mutually transforming. Embrace change, promote change with a positive attitude, shape a good risk personality, and dance with risk. This is the law of nature and the wisdom for us to get along better with the world. Wucker’s new book has strong enlightening value for us to refresh our risk awareness and prevent and resolve risk events.
— Ren Zeping (Economist)  

YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK In the News

Read, listen and watch more about Michele’s latest book, YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World at the links below:


Recognition:
You Are What You Risk book cover with Next Big Idea Club seal

A Next Big Idea Club Spring 2021 Nominee
An AudioFile Earphones Award honoree (audiobook edition): “Michele Wucker examines how gender and age, cultural and family norms, and economic status impact how we view and handle risk. With refreshing, often hip, writing, she explains the perceptual flaws that cloud our ability to grasp the chances we take in life…this enlightening lesson is full of insights and strategies for seeing the risks we take more clearly.” 
A Porchlight Books Editor’s Choice:  “Beyond understanding risk on a personal, an academic, and even a geopolitical level, what I think readers will be left with is a better understanding of the topic that Wucker ultimately uncovers—reality. To live in reality is to understand risk, and that it is no longer confined to our daily lives or the life of the communities, countries, and nations we live in.”

News Coverage and Reviews:
Los Angeles Review of Books: Risk Management and its Discontents: “Timely….Wucker offers a cultured, societal, gendered, and generational look at risk across the world.” 
Take the Lead Women: How Risky Are You? Discover Your Risk Profile to Succeed
YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: A Review by Anne Janzer
Q&A with Deborah Kalb
Grist: The World Is Getting Scarier
Risk & Insurance Magazine: COVID’s Unsettling Impact on the Future of Work and What Perils and Potential Upsides Remain
Book review in The Rewired Soul
World Class Performer: Short Life Lessons from Michele Wucker
Maeil Business Newspaper (Korea)” [5 Years After The Gray Rhino, Author Asks “What’s Your Risk Fingerprint?” (Cover Story) (in Korean; use browser translater)]
Financial Times: Risk Specialists Draw Lessons from Greensill Saga
The Wall Street Journal: Losing Dollars by Pinching Pennies

Lists:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 40 Books for Summer Reading
Capital Spectator BookBits: Six More for the Investor’s Bookshelf
Practical eCommerce: 14 New Business Books for 2021
Business Digest EU: Les lectures à ne pas manquer – Printemps 2021 [Books not to miss -Spring 2021]

Watch:
FlexJobs Webinar: Risk and the Future of Work: How to Thrive Amid Uncertainty
Sustain What? with Andrew Revkin: Two Experts Offer Personal Solution Paths Amid Complexity and Inevitability
YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK Book launch “at” The Book Cellar in conversation with Amy Guth

Listen:
Next Big Idea Club Book Bites (download app to listen)
Disaster Zone Episode 41: Personal and Organizational Risk Management
Steady Trade Episode 200: Discover Your Risk Fingerprint With Michele Wucker
Human Risk with Christian Hunt: Michele Wucker on You Are What You Risk
IBTalk with Paul Lucas: Why You Are What You Risk
Populyst with Sami Karam: You Are What You Risk, with Michele Wucker
OODAcast: Michele Wucker on Identifying and Confronting the Obvious Risks of Gray Rhinos

YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK Chicago Book Launch video

Chicago media personality Amy Guth moderates a conversation with Gray Rhino & Company CEO Michele Wucker about her new book, YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World, for the Chicago launch at independent bookstore The Book Cellar, in partnership with Institute for Work and the EconomyChicago Global Shapers, Human Citizen Workplace, and The Authors Guild Chicago Chapter.

They are joined by Chicago-based interviewees Agam AroraPeter CreticosJermikko, and Genevieve Thiers.

Watch here:

YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK

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

The Gray Rhino in BTS hit single”Blue & Grey”

The gray rhino inspired a lyric in the hit single “Blue & Grey” by the global K-pop phenomenon BTS released with its album BE in November 2020. BTS, which is known for smashing music records and bringing needed attention to under-appreciated issues, shone a full-on spotlight on mental health with “BE.” Vox called the release “essential pandemic pop.” The hit singles “Life Goes On” and “Blue & Grey” (which Rolling Stone called the album’s standout song) in particular refer to the pain of depression and loneliness during lockdown but offer a message of hope: we can get through this and life goes on.

A rap line in “Blue & Grey” uses the gray rhino as a metaphor for anxiety and depression: “This lump of metal does feel heavy/ A grey rhino that is coming toward me/ Absently, I stand with vacant eyes.”

Listen to the song along with real-time translations here:

My tweet about the song, which BTS’ official account “liked,” went viral and generated headlines in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea.

Watch below as BTS’s V (Kim Tae-hyun), who wrote the main text of Blue & Grey and was producer for the song, interviews J-Hope (Jung Ho-seok), who wrote and performed the song’s rap overlay including the gray rhino lyric. J-Hope begins discussing the concept around 9:10 in the video, explaining that “It’s also a term used in economics… It’s a term used to describe a danger that you’re aware is approaching, but you neglect and ignore it. Grey rhino is used to describe those dangers. And when I used that term it was like having a face-to-face with myself. The job I have has many dangerous factors, and there are other dangerous factors. But for these parts I have to carry with me the dangers I can’t be sure of. So instead of being afraid of it, I wanted to face it. And that’s what I wanted to convey.” In response, V says, “When I saw the lyrics, ‘gray rhino,’ I told our producers, ‘Holy moly, baam. Wow, grandfather!’ I think I’ve used all the exclamations I can think of!”

COVID-19 Video Conversations

Michele Wucker has been in high demand for commentary on why so many pandemic warnings went unheeded and what we need to look for coming down the road including debt crisis. Here’s a compilation of recent video appearances.

Leadership Insights Episode 024
Brough Leadership Institute (South Africa)
Conversation with Andy Brough
July 8, 2020

An Insolvent World: Can We Avoid a Global Debt Crisis?
UN Global Compact Leadership Summit
Panel with Navid Hanif, Director of Financing for Sustainable Development Office United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA); Shari Spiegel, Chief of Policy Analysis & Development Branch, UN DESA), and Sebastian Grund, Harvard Law School
June 15, 2020

Transcending the Crisis
CEO Roundtable and Context of Things
Whitaker Raymond in Conversation with Michele Wucker
May 8, 2020


Is COVID-19 a ‘Gray Rhino’ Event?
Wildtype Media/Asian Scientist Magazine (Singapore)
Michele Wucker interviewed by Juliana Chan
May 22, 2020

Leadership Through and Beyond the Crisis
Micro Strategies
Michele Wucker in conversation with Lisa Nemeth Cavanaugh and Beverly Geiger
Micro Strategies
May 8, 2020

Twenty Minutes from the Future: Gray Rhinos and our Future
ImpactsCool (Italy)
Christina Pozzi in conversation with Michele Wucker
May 26, 2020


The covid-19 pandemic is not a Black Swan but a Gray Rhino: latest development of the pandemic in Europe and US 
Nottingham University Business School (China/UK)
A Dialogue with Michele Geraci, former Undersecretary of Finance for Economic Development for Italy
May 14th, 2020

Fireside Chat with Champions
A conversation with Deepak Pareek (India)
May 25, 2020


Black Swans, Gray Rhinos, and Tigers..Oh My with Michele Wucker
RCM Alternatives Derivatives Podcast with Jeff Malec
May 28, 2020

COVID-19 Related Podcasts

Catch up with Michele by listening to the recent podcast interviews she’s done focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and its financial consequences. Here are links and short descriptions:

Moneywise Guys
David Anderson and Sherod White, KERN Talk Radio/Moneywise Guys, June 30, 2020
David and Sherod talk with THE GRAY RHINO author Michele Wucker about why you should be wary of the surge in the markets, and how you can keep from getting trampled when the bull market turns to a bear.

Would You Know If a Gray Rhino Was Coming at You?
Jim Blasingame, The Small Business Advocate, June 16, 2020
Michele Wucker joins Jim Blasingame to reveal the concept of a metaphorical gray rhino, which is a challenge on your horizon that you should be – have been – able to anticipate and deal with before it takes – took – you down.

A Conversation with Michele Wucker
Anne Janzer’s blog, June 12, 2020
Podcast and transcript
“Q: For people who aren’t familiar with it, we’ll talk about your book The Gray Rhino. The reason that it’s coming up today is because this pandemic is a wonderful example of a Gray Rhino: a risk that it’s obvious we’ve seen stampeding towards us—or some people have been seeing and shouting about—and yet we’ve done nothing until we’re on the horn of the rhino.”

Michele Wucker Breaks Down the Gray Rhino
Scott Kitun, WGN Radio/Technori
June 10, 2020
“When people think back to the 2008 financial crisis and other big events, they often jump to the moment’s inevitability that catastrophically impacts economies, businesses and lives in what has become known as black swan events. However, Wucker dissects just how much we overlook in terms of predicting global-scale events and phenomenon, with the answers often hidden in plain sight.”

Black Swans, Gray Rhinos, and Tigers..Oh My with Michele Wucker
RCM Alternatives, Derivatives Podcast, May 28, 2020
[Video Podcast]
“The financial world seems to have a fascination with zoomorphism – the attribution of animal names, emotions, or intentions to non- animal occurrences like market shocks. Black Swans are the famous one, but there’s also been White Moose and Gray Rhino added to the lexicon. This episode we sit down with the creator of the Gray Rhino risk metaphor, Michele Wucker, author of The Gray Rhino.”

The big questions we face in coming months
Amy Guth, Crain’s Daily Gist, May 25, 2020
“Author Michele Wucker coined the term “grey rhino” for a highly probable, high-impact yet neglected threat. In this episode of the podcast, she talks with host Amy Guth about how grey rhinos could shape economic recovery, the practical decisions we’re going to need to make over the coming weeks and months and what helps us to bounce back quickly.”

Covid-19 and the perils of prediction
Tom Standage, The Economist The World Ahead (podcast), March 31, 2020
“As the Covid-19 situation worsens, host Tom Standage explores what the pandemic reveals about the perils of prediction and what other future threats we might be overlooking. ”

Michele Wucker and Gray Rhinos
Richard Cutcher and Julia Graham, Airmic Talks, May 10, 2020

Interview with Michele Wucker
David R. Koenig, DCRO Risk Governance, May 8, 2020

The Truth About Facing A Challenge
Gary Sanchez, Beyond Your Why, May 1, 2020

Global Thinkers Forum in Conversation with Changemakers
Elisabeth Filippouli, Global Thinkers Forum and Athena40, 17 April 2020

War, What Is It Good For?
National Public Radio on the Media, April 3, 2020

Breaking the Fever Inaugural Episode
Preventable Surprises and Ethical Systems, Breaking the Fever, March 31, 2020

A Metaphor for Our Times

If the nobody-could-have-seen-it-coming black swan metaphor was the narrative of the 2008 market meltdown, author and strategist Michele Wucker’s highly probable, obvious “gray rhino” metaphor tells the story of the crisis we are in today. 

Amid the double calamities of the COVID-19 pandemic and market meltdown, both of which followed repeated public warnings that went ignored, the gray rhino has struck a chord and generated a flood of headlines around the world.  

Cover of New Model Advisor Magazine -a rhino's horn in front of a cracked wall with headline "The Signs Were There"

Crisis Response Journal recently called the gray rhino “A metaphor for our times.” The UK financial magazine, New Model Advisor, made the gray rhino the cover story of its new issue, relegating the black swan to a sidebar.

Nassim Taleb, who coined the term “black swan” for highly improbable and unforeseeable events, has declared on twitter and in multiple interviews, including on Bloomberg News, that the combined pandemic and financial crisis was and is not a black swan. It was neither unforeseeable nor even improbable.

Michele coined the term “gray rhino” to draw attention to the obvious risks that are neglected despite – indeed, often because of– their size and likelihood. The gray rhino metaphor has moved markets, shaped financial policies, and made headlines around the world. She introduced it at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos in 2013, and developed a five-stage analytical framework in her 2016 book, THE GRAY RHINO: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore, which has sold hundreds of thousands of copies around the world and influenced China’s financial risk strategy

Michele’s recent Washington Post op-ed challenged the tired black swan trope that has given portfolio managers and policy makers a convenient “nobody saw it coming” cop-out when they ignore obvious dangers: “Let’s trade the black swan for the gray rhino: a mind-set that holds ourselves and our government accountable for heeding warnings and acting when we still have a chance to change the course of events for the better instead of waiting for a crisis to act.”  The Wall Street Journal quoted her Washington Post article, offering the gray rhino as an alternative to the black swan. 

Axios, Fast Company, and The Economist’s The World Ahead podcast have adopted the gray metaphor to describe this crisis. The term also has made pandemic and financial collapse related headlines in Australia, China and Taiwan (too many articles to link), Japan, South Korea, Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Middle East, South Africa, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, the Czech Republic, Chile, Venezuela, Canada, and Mexico.

The black swan has been misused to normalize complacency. By contrast, the gray rhino provides an alternative that challenges decision makers to be held accountable for failing to prepare for and head off clear and present dangers.

It provides not only a new way to think about the twin pandemic and financial crises, but also a framework for how we can do a better job holding decision makers accountable when they fail to keep threats from turning into catastrophes. As Crisis Response Journal put it, the gray rhino is indeed a metaphor for our times.