How can you align your culture vision with your organization's risk tolerance?

A critical first step to aligning your culture vision, and risk tolerance is having an overarching cohesive business strategy that drives all your key strategic objectives including culture and risk management. This ensures consistent messaging, implementation and assessment towards company mission. But it also highlights the impact of, and interplay between culture and risk. To illustrate, I help clients unlock belonging as a business strategy to drive their people,performance to product, etc. so that whether developing a product, hiring, or implementing safety regs, the strategy is - do each in a way that makes our people (customers, employees, stakeholders) feel seen, heard, valued, and respected so they can be, do and give their best.

Imagine the organizational culture as a vibrant canvas waiting to be painted. The SOAR analysis serves as our palette, helping us blend the colors of strengths and opportunities while being mindful of the shades of risks. By wielding this analytical brush, we craft a culture that not only aligns with our visionary strokes but also acknowledges the canvas's tolerance for risk.

With 85% of change programmes failing, and the figure being even higher for culture changes, the evidence is that not many leaders understand culture. The problem in this field seems to be that many leaders 'don't know what they don't know' but, feel under pressure to act in spite of their awareness deficit. The same applies to vision formation. Equally, there is much knowledge about risk management but, not about how to build that into a culture. That makes it nearly impossible for leaders to match risk profile to culture and vision. I have developed modules to address each of the above challenges. The key principles have been hinted at in some of books.

In order to align the vision of our desired culture with the organization's risk tolerance, conducting a thorough analysis is crucial. I believe that employing a SOAR analysis is an effective tool for this purpose. The SOAR analysis not only aids in identifying gaps but also helps in recognizing potential risks. This proactive approach enables us to be well-prepared before implementing any cultural changes. By leveraging the insights gained through a comprehensive analysis, we can ensure that our cultural vision is not only in harmony with organizational goals but is also aligned with our risk tolerance, fostering a resilient and adaptable organizational culture.

Aligning your culture vision with your organization's risk tolerance is like tuning a high-performance engine. Assessing your current culture and risk profile is the first lap in this race. Think of surveys and interviews as your pit crew, providing essential feedback for fine-tuning. Frameworks like the Competing Values Framework are your dashboard, offering a clear readout of whether you're in the innovative fast lane or taking a more conservative route. This initial assessment sets the pace, helping you navigate whether you're on a proactive path or reacting to each turn. It's a strategic blend of introspection and foresight, ensuring your organizational vehicle is not just ready for the journey but primed to win the race.

Defining your desired culture and risk appetite is akin to navigating a ship through uncharted waters. Utilize your mission, vision, and strategy as the compass, guiding your organization's cultural journey. Risk appetite is your map, outlining how much risk is acceptable in pursuit of your objectives. Engaging leaders, managers, and employees in this process fosters a co-created culture vision, akin to a crew working in harmony, each contributing to the journey ahead. This collaborative approach not only builds consensus but also ensures your organizational culture is a true reflection of collective aspirations and risk readiness.

Defining your desired culture and risk appetite is like being a chef concocting a signature dish. Your mission, vision, and strategy are the key ingredients, setting the flavor profile for your organization's culture. The risk appetite, on the other hand, is like choosing how spicy you want this dish to be. How much risk can your organization stomach to achieve its objectives? Involving leaders, managers, and employees in this process is akin to having a team of sous-chefs, each adding their own spice to the mix. . This co-creation process is not just about reaching a consensus; it's about crafting a unique recipe that represents the collective taste and daring of your organization.

We should clearly define our desired culture and risk appetite. This involves identifying the values, behaviors, and principles that reflect our ideal workplace culture, while also determining the level of risk we are willing to accept in order to achieve our objectives. By establishing this dual definition, we are able to create a solid foundation for aligning our cultural aspirations with our risk management strategies. It provides a framework that guides decision-making, ensuring a harmonious balance between our organizational values and our risk tolerance. This alignment is critical as it fosters a resilient and adaptable workplace that is capable of successfully navigating challenges while remaining true to our defined cultural vision.

I recommend using a tool like Teamphoria to gather data, benchmark culture and identify unique challenges and requirements in teams, departments or entire geographical areas. Pin-pointing the exact needs in a team or for a manager, enables hyper-personalization of learning, development and coaching and delivers the required results in 12 weeks or less.

Identifying and addressing gaps and barriers in aligning culture vision with risk tolerance is like being a detective in a mystery novel. Tools like SWOT analysis are your magnifying glass, uncovering clues hidden in the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Think of gap analysis as the plot twist, revealing the unexpected chasms between 'what is' and 'what should be'. And root cause analysis? That's your interrogation technique, getting to the bottom of why these gaps exist. Then, like any good sleuth, you need your toolkit – change management, stakeholder management, project management – to craft a master plan. Training and mentoring are like building a team of sidekicks, each equipped to tackle the challenges ahead.

It is important we asses understanding our employees' perceptions of risk and how our leadership team responds to it. Simultaneously, we should analyze the risk landscape, identifying any potential threats that may hinder our progress. To bridge any gaps that we uncover, we can foster open communication among our teams, provide targeted training to address any knowledge or skill deficiencies, and ensure that our leadership exemplifies and reinforces the desired culture. By addressing these disparities, we will be able to create a harmonious balance between our cultural aspirations and our risk tolerance. This will ultimately contribute to our organization's effective and sustainable growth.

When conducting organizational audits and assessments, I always emphasize three non negotiable rules. 1. Interview across all levels of the organization 2. Start with the list of names the client leader has given you- but add at least 20% of interviewees as recommended by the initial group. Specifically find the people unhappy or disgruntled with the status quo. 3. Make sure the overall list of people interviewed stays anonymous by implementing step 2. That way the fear of retribution is minimized.

Your employees' understanding of risk appetite will largely be informed by things: The first is their understanding (and experience with) risk tolerance in the organization, most closely derived from who their leader might be. The second is their own individual risk appetite. The latter is rarely solicited by employers and yet its so consequential in determining whether vision can be fulfilled, and even whether visioning, in general, is a fruitful exercise.

Monitoring results and feedback is key to lowering risk, killing bottle necks and lead times and keeping your operation running smoothly. Evaluating results and feedback will help you keep true to your goals and create tools that leverage your culture and makes it easier for your environment to adapt to change. Aligning all these elements is likely to enable you to turn challenges, weaknessess and threats into opportunities that will help you thrive.

GPT Monitoring and evaluating your alignment efforts is like being the judge at a talent show, where your organization's culture and risk appetite are the star performers. Dashboards and scorecards are your score sheets, tracking each act's highs and lows. Surveys and interviews? They're the audience's applause (or lack thereof), giving you the raw, unfiltered feedback. It's like using a stethoscope to listen to the heartbeat of your organization. Metrics like employee engagement and customer loyalty are the standing ovations, telling you what's working, while innovation rates and risk exposure are the tough critiques, highlighting areas for improvement.

First of all its important to continuously monitoring and evaluating the alignment of our culture vision with organizational risk tolerance. To ensure the effectiveness and adaptability of our strategies, I kindly request your support in regularly assessing the outcomes of initiatives aimed at aligning culture and risk tolerance. It would be valuable to solicit and analyze feedback from employees, stakeholders, and leadership during this process. By engaging in this iterative process, we can make necessary course corrections to ensure that our strategies remain effective in fostering a resilient and harmonized environment. This will ultimately help us achieve sustained success in our organizational goals.

It's important for employers to understand the extent to which their posture and understanding of the principles that support diversity, equity, inclusion in the workplace, have everything to do with the strategic imperatives they will be promulgating henceforth. Specifically as it relates to risk experiences...that most certainly cuts along lines of difference. For employers who have not earnestly assessed and unearthed how "difference" must navigate the workplace and how "difference" experiences the nuances of what is tolerated here, and what isn't, there is a direct impact to how "difference" understands risk inside of an organization. This will be increasingly the case as the demand for dexterity w/ difference increases demographically.

In aligning culture with risk, embrace the 'Chameleon Effect': adapt like a chameleon, but keep your true colors. Picture a 'Dress Like Your Future Self Day' – a corporate twist where aspirations are worn, not just spoken. It's fun, insightful, and a bit like Halloween with career dreams. Don't ignore the 'Coffee Machine Conversations' either. These casual chats by the caffeine hub can reveal more than formal meetings ever do. It's less about suits and more about insights. These unconventional approaches not only inject fun into the workplace but also offer unique, powerful insights into your culture's pulse. Get ready for an eye-opening, awe-inspiring ride!

‘Culture’ and ‘Risk Appetite’ are created and maintained by a person - or a group of People aligned to that person - so the desire for Change starts at or towards the top of the organisation. People need to change their behaviours before the systems and processes that prop up the Culture can change. One option is to identify the blockers and remove them from their positions or the if they understand they need to change and are willing, choose the Coaching route. People changing their learned behaviours is challenging and takes sustained effort. The Change Agent to make that happen involves Executive Coaching - individuals AND Team Coaching. This creates the conditions for sustainable and credible Culture Change.