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LEARNING RESOURCES

here. Create champions in your
How Culture Affects Risks organisation who exhibit the behaviours
you want to see and have strong networks
Core values are foundational elements in culture. Learn the steps and use them to get your message across.
to build a healthy culture within your organisation and embed risk These are not necessarily the most senior
management into your organisation’s culture. people or even your highest performers,
COURSE but they embody the good parts of your
culture and informally will have a lot of
influence in the organisation.
How to Build a High Performing Culture In the longer term, there is more that
Learn about a practical, actionable programme designed to give you can do to ensure that all aspects of
participants the tools to leverage their corporate culture as a your business are aligned to encourage
distinct competitive advantage. those behaviours you want to see more of
and discourage those you would like to
VIDEO leave behind. Changes to organisational
structure, recruitment processes, and
systems would be appropriate here. Keep
track of how your culture and behaviours
change over time to see which measures
determine whether the culture you have is are working and where you may need
Resource the one that you actually want. The focus further work.
Online tool of many cultural reviews is to determine Remember, though, that culture is
CGMA Risk Management Tool whether your culture exposes you to enormous — so think about which specific
culture metrics would make the most
operational, regulatory, financial, or
reputational risk. However, the wrong sense for you to track. Examples may be
culture can be just as damaging if it’s key questions in employee surveys,
training they receive, the structure and preventing you from increasing your observations of behaviours at key
hierarchy of the organisation, and how they market share, improving efficiencies, or decision-making points, and the speed
are rewarded, financially or otherwise. In driving innovation. and diligence of how internal audit
addition to these hard measures, culture findings are addressed.
can also just as powerfully be driven by Use your culture to its best advantage
softer measures — for example, unwritten Culture change takes many years, so on an Moulding your business’s culture
“codes of behaviour”, such as “we are nice to ongoing basis you will need to incentivise over time
each other” and “we don’t upset people”, your employees to behave in a less risky Your culture influences your employees’
leads to an avoidance of difficult manner, using the key features of the behaviours. Changing culture can take
conversations and problems being “swept culture you have. time, but once you understand the existing
under the carpet”. Consider how you can change culture, you can create a plan with short-,
To get an insight into your culture, you processes and procedures that suit the medium-, and long-term actions. Piloting
can use proprietary tools and surveys or culture but also have the impact that you this with one team or division gives you a
perform a more bespoke cultural review. If want on people’s behaviour. For example, place to try things out and a group of
doing the latter, you may want to get your you may want to keep a supportive culture people to share their experiences and
internal audit team involved. Internal but also change organisational structures advocate for change when you’re ready to
audits of culture are becoming more and processes to obtain more of a culture launch across the whole business.
commonplace, though still relatively rare where people are held accountable for Your people are your biggest asset but
outside of regulated industries. Whatever their mistakes. If you have a competitive, can also be your greatest risk. By
you do, you must ensure you have a tight performance-driven culture, then KPIs and ensuring employees know what they
grasp of the review’s scope. By definition, balanced scorecards will work well, so should be doing, have the knowledge
culture is vast and amorphous. Narrow ensure that behavioural measures are and tools to execute, and are motivated
your reviews down to where the risk of a included. If your culture rewards to do it in the right way through your
behavioural issue would cause the most efficiency, automate as much as possible culture, you can leverage this asset
damage. This may be around health and and streamline processes. whilst reducing the risk. ■
safety, customer service, or taking on new
business — it will depend on your strategic Train staff and leverage role models
objectives, industry, and regulatory Include the importance of behaviours (the Helen Tuddenham is an executive coach
environment. “why” and the “how” as well as the “what”) and leadership development consultant
When you have understood your in training programmes — particularly for based in the UK. To comment on this
industry and culture, you can pinpoint the new hires and for those at higher levels of article or to suggest an idea for
areas that could cause you the most leadership. Examples or stories of the another article, contact Oliver Rowe at
exposure and also have a discussion to desired behaviours in action can work well Oliver.Rowe@aicpa-cima.com.

18 I FM MAGAZINE I December 2022