ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on human behaviour in the face of uncertainty and see how powerful social forces can derail even technically brilliant risk-control schemes. A major goal for designers of controls is to find controls that are effective at addressing uncertainty suppression. The aspect of uncertainty blindness illustrated by the Holyrood fiasco is the tendency to think that goals are enough for delegation. People in very senior leadership positions often feel under pressure to provide a kind of visionary leadership based on imagining an ideal future for their organization and inspiring everyone in the organization to work to get to that ideal future. Many technically excellent risk management initiatives have had disappointing results because people are strongly motivated to avoid talking about alternative outcomes. In the last few decades psychologists have documented an amazing variety of irrational human behaviours linked to risk and uncertainty.
