Surviving and Thriving in Uncertainty

Overview

A new book to help senior executives and boards get smart about risk management

The ability of businesses to survive and thrive often requires unconventional thinking and calculated risk-taking. The key is to make the right decisions―even under the most risky, uncertain, and turbulent conditions.

In the new book, Surviving and Thriving in Uncertainty: Creating the Risk Intelligent Enterprise, authors Rick Funston and Steve Wagner suggest that effective risk taking is needed in order to innovate, stay competitive, and drive value creation.

Based on their combined decades of experience as practitioners, consultants, and advisors to numerous business professionals throughout the world, Funston and Wagner discuss the adoption of 10 essential and practical skills, which will improve agility, resilience, and realize benefits:

  • Challenging basic business assumptions can help identify "Black Swans" and provide a first-mover advantage

  • Defining the corporate risk appetite and risk tolerances can help reduce the risk of ruin.

  • Anticipating potential causes of failure can improve chances of survival and success through improved preparedness.

  • Factoring in velocity and momentum can improve the speed of response and recovery.

  • Verifying sources and the reliability of information can improve insights for decision making and thus decision quality.

  • Taking a longer-term perspective can aid in identifying the potential unintended consequences of short-term decisions.

“Rick Funston and his team at Board Smart have designed a very practical, impactful way of educating pension plan trustees. Using the progressive disclosure method of communicating, starting with easy-to-digest pieces of information and then allowing board members to drill down into more detail on each subject, makes the complex world of a pension board fiduciary less intimidating. Transforming the Dialogue: Fiduciary Essentials builds upon the Board Smart curriculum and acts as a ready reference for all board members, regardless of tenure.”- Kevin Olineck, Executive Director of Oregon Public Employees Retirement System
“Around the world, government sponsored pension funds invest trillions of dollars to provide safe and secure retirement for teachers, policemen, fire fighters, and others engaged in public service.  Some of these funds are fully funded; some are not.  Some of them are well governed by their boards; some are not.  Some of them have a positive impact on the governance of public companies and private equity partnerships; some of them do not.  There is one subject about which there is no question, however:  that Rick Funston is THE world expert on how public pension funds should be governed so that they can execute their fiduciary responsibilities well.”- David Nierenberg, chairman emeritus of the Ira Millstein Center at Columbia University Law School, longest serving member of The Washington State Investment Board, and founder and President of Nierenberg Investment Management Company
“The Fiduciary Essentials Handbook is an invaluable guide to fulfilling fiduciary responsibilities and protecting pension system integrity. A must-read for Trustees and Administrators.”- Katie Girardi, Executive Director, San Luis Obispo County Pension Trust
“This Handbook should be required reading for trustees and pension system staff. From my vantage point, it will not only be helpful to the ongoing development of the system (our system or any other), but also an independent resource to validate policies and practices with trustees or other stakeholders and a great developmental tool for staff advancement purposes.”- Scott Simon, Executive Director, MoDOT & Patrol Employees’ Retirement System

Frederick (Rick) Funston

Author / Editor information

Rick has over fifty years of experience in both not-for-profit and for-profit sectors.  His career began in crisis intervention within the public sector. He later trained hostage negotiators, medical personnel and public service workers in de-escalation techniques. He acted as a negotiator and facilitator in numerous stakeholder engagements including working with the Canadian brewing industry during the NAFTA negotiations.  

This evolved into consulting roles focused on strategy and operations, organizational leadership development, performance management, program evaluation, and survey research.   

Between 1998-2010, he was the National Practice leader for Deloitte’s Governance and Risk Oversight Services.  In that capacity, he served many of Deloitte’s largest domestic and global clients. In 2001, Rick created the concept of risk intelligence for value creation and protection.  

He is a frequent public speaker and is the principal author of Surviving and Thriving in Uncertainty: Creating the Risk Intelligent Enterprise®, published by John Wiley & Sons in April 2010.  This book specifically targeted the governance and risk oversight needs of boards and executives in both public and private sectors.   

He served on the Board of Visitors for the Oakland University School of Business Administration from 2009-2011 and was an Adjunct Professor for the executive MBA program.  Rick left Deloitte & Touche LLP in May 2010 and formed Funston Advisory Services LLC.  Between 2011-2012, he served as special advisor to the Risk Institute of the Max Fisher School of Business at The Ohio State University.  

Rick was the editor and a primary contributor to One of a Kind! A Practical Guide for 21st Century Public Pension Trustees published in 2017. Most recently, Rick is the principal author of a forthcoming book with Jon Lukomnik Adapt or Fail! A 5x5 Governance Framework for Board of Directors to be published by De Gruyter in March 2025. 

He was awarded a B.A. from York University in Ontario and an M.S.W. from Tulane University.

Rick is based in Naples, Florida.