QOTW: Strategy is not predicting the future. Instead, it's about making decisions today to be ready for an uncertain tomorrow - Drucker

This quote is from Peter Drucker, p 125 of his 1974 classic book: Management: Tasks, Practices, Responsibilities (Harper and Row).  Though it talks about strategic planning, the same applies to risk management (emphasis added):

"Strategic planning does not deal with future decisions.  It deals with the futurity of present decisions.  Decisions only exist in the present.  The questions that faces the strategic decision-maker is not what his organization should do tomorrow.  It is, 'What do we have to do today to be ready for an uncertain tomorrow?'  The question is not what will happen in the future.  It is, 'What futurity do we have to build into our present thinking and doing, what time spans do we have to consider, and how do we use this information to make a rational decision now?'"

Quote of the Week: Machiavelli on the Enemies of Reform, Including the 'Incredulity of Mankind'

I found this choice quote in: Paquet, G. (1998). Evolutionary cognitive economics. Information Economics and Policy, 10(3): 343–357.  Emphasis added.

"For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favour; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it." -- Machiavelli, 1537

Full citation: Machiavelli, N., 1952 (orig. 1537) The Prince, New York: Mentor Book, p 49-50.