Preparing for financial surprise

This essay shows how Todd LaPorte's work on reliability-seeking organizations contains insights for how we might understand the financial crisis of 2008-2009. In particular, the financial system was not perceived and described as critical infrastructure, there was a regulatory overemphasis on routine operational practices at the entity level, and there was insufficient countercyclical leadership. These and other of LaPorte's ideas bridge the divide between the two 'cultures' of financial and non-financial risk management. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.