Psychology of Risk
This interactive peer-to-peer training helps you recognize human behavior as a strategic parameter in risk management, from cognitive traps and cultural dynamics to power structures that distort risk signals. Through analyzing real risk dilemmas with fellow financial sector professionals, you translate shared insights directly into concrete interventions you can implement in your organization within weeks.
Risk management in financial services is built on models, figures, and frameworks. Yet one parameter repeatedly undermines even the best technical work: human behavior. It shapes how we perceive signals, interpret uncertainty, and act under pressure. That is why behavioral risk deserves a more explicit place in governance, decision making, and risk advice.
This highly interactive peer-to-peer training helps you recognize and work with human behavior as a strategic parameter in risk management. Together with fellow risk professionals, you will exchange real dilemmas and practical approaches, guided by experts who connect scientifically validated insights with day-to-day risk practices.
This training offers more than academic knowledge. It is an opportunity to discover your own blind spots, learn from peers, and develop skills to systematically address behavioral risks in your organization.
Target Audience
This training is designed for mid-level and senior non-financial risk professionals in financial services. Do you want to not only manage behavioural risks, but also understand how human behaviour influences your own risk assessments? Then this peer-to-peer session offers a safe and substantive setting to learn from scientific research and to exchange knowledge and perspectives with peers.
Learning Goals
- Diagnose behavioral risk using the Risk Triple Loop Framework (technical, cognitive, social, and cultural).
- Recognize common cognitive traps (for example confirmation bias and sunk cost fallacy) in your own and others’ risk judgements, especially under time pressure and high stakes.
- Surface cultural and power dynamics that distort risk signals (for example fear of escalation and normalization of deviance) and describe their impact on governance.
- Select and apply practical interventions (‘nudges’) to reduce predictable errors in risk related decisions.
- Translate insights into action by defining one concrete change to implement in your organization within weeks.
Program
Risk Compass Introduction – We start by mapping the group’s risk identities and decision styles. You then experience a short, high-impact bias demonstration and a guided ‘mirror moment’ to surface how predictable errors show up even in senior risk work. Our trainers introduce the Risk Triple-Loop Framework as the shared diagnostic lens for the session.
Peer-to-peer discussions – Participants bring real risk dilemmas from their own practice. In small groups, you use the triple-loop framework to diagnose what is really happening, beyond the numbers, including the cognitive traps and cultural/power dynamics that distort risk signals. We harvest patterns across cases to build a collective view of the most common behavioral hurdles in financial sector risk work.
From insight to action – You receive a practical ‘menu’ of behavioral interventions to address common biases in risk management processes. In subgroups, you then practice a conversation in an adversarial AI simulation, which will be trained by the input from the discussions during the training. The session closes with a short pre-mortem for your organization and one concrete commitment you can implement immediately.
Trainers
Leaders in Finance Academy organizes this peer-to-peer learning in collaboration with the Risk and Crisis Management Knowledge Hub, part of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU).
Julia Vitte is Co-Director of the Risk and Crisis Management Knowledge Hub. As a risk management researcher and practicioner, she combines academic knowledge with practical experience. She helps organisations recognize risks and translate them into concrete interventions in governance structures.
Jost Sieweke is Co-Director of the Risk and Crisis Management Knowledge Hub and Associate Professor of Strategic Leadership at VU. His research focuses on leadership and decision-making in complex environments. He publishes in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Management Studies and The Leadership Quarterly, and translates these insights into applicable knowledge for practitioners.
In this duo dynamic, they complement each other: Jost focuses on the ‘Architecture of Errors,’ using cognitive science to explain why the brain is a faulty risk-assessment tool, while Julia focuses on the ‘Cost of Errors,’ using her years of experience to translate those abstract biases into practice.
Registration
Do you want to understand how human behaviour influences your own risk assessments and learn to address it systematically? Register for this peer-to-peer session: an interactive training with fellow professionals focused on sharing experiences and applying insights in practice.
The cost is €499 (excl. VAT) per person. Group size is limited to ensure an intimate and effective learning experience. Register now using the form on the right.
📩 Want to use your personal training budget? Registration may also be possible through your employer’s learning portal.
Interested in learning about other peer-to-peer trainings?
