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Case study of 3M, looking at how individual and group dynamics suppressed concerns around forever chemicals, and what lessons this may hold for risk strategy more generally.

Whistleblowing is an extreme form of dissent. How organisations seek to disrupt, ignore and discredit whistleblowers provides insight into how organisations seek to actively silence unwanted dissent and challenge more generally.

Ideology (our values, assumptions, and mental shortcuts) shapes what we notice, trust, and consider acceptable, especially when data is limited or uncertainty is high. While ideology can enable speed and coherence, unchallenged or dominant worldviews create blind spots, making it critical for organisations and risk teams to surface assumptions, encourage diverse perspectives, and question the stories they tell about themselves.

Risk event processes can incentivise organisations to add low‑value controls that protect individuals from blame but gradually erode judgement, empowerment, and adaptability. Over time, this control‑heavy response to failures makes organisations more brittle; better at managing yesterday’s risks, but less able to respond intelligently to future shocks.

Risk frameworks often fail because they overlook how formal, informal, and personal incentives, stress, and loss‑framing predictably shape human behaviour, especially under pressure.

Organisations operate within a 'perceptual bubble' shaped by their data, language, and assumptions. By challenging outdated frameworks, exploring alternative viewpoints, and understanding how categorisation shapes decisions, risk teams can help organisations navigate unseen risks and make better-informed choices.

How Risk teams can use assessments of organisations' Overton Windows and Social Capital to build strategies to drive more effective challenge.

Risk teams require a "social license" to provide effective challenge. This can be measured and used to support risk management strategy.

Integrating organisational psychology into the risk management toolset.