What is Senior Management Really Afraid Of?

by Thornton May

I am on the road about 280 days a year. During my travels, I collect over 500 business cards every five to six weeks. In fact, I've been called a "bow tie wearing sensing device" by my sharper-tongued colleagues. During the past two years, I have been going door to door with senior executives to determine what the "top of the house" is really thinking about. In a previous Executive Update, I set forth the premise that risk and risk management will be the defining element of enterprise success for the second decade of the third millennium. ¹ In this Update, I hope to take you on a "fantastic voyage" ² inside the troubled and increasingly risk-aware minds of senior management. The research -- conducted on LinkedIn, at four universities (Florida State College at Jacksonville, Ohio State University, Olin College of Engineering, and University of Kentucky), and at the 2011 Interop New York conference (with more than 7,500 attendees) -- surfaced three fundamental management fear zones: