Risk management is challenging business.
It is not as simple as some in the consulting world make it out to be – where you believe that you can simply stroll into a board room waving a magic wand and all levels of the organisation will change their human behaviors creating a risk-aware culture. That’s just dreaming. Risk management is TOUGH, and it should be – as nothing great in life is easy.
Risk management at its core is about changing decision making processes to involve the identification and assessment of risks that could adversely impact the achievement of strategic objectives.
In order to change how decisions are made, you have to first change the HUMAN.
Once human behaviors in the aggregate are changed, a shift towards a more risk-aware culture can be achieved. Sounds simple right? Walk into any meeting and try to get the people in that meeting and all of their direct reports to change the way they have been doing things for any period of time. No, not an easy task.
Changing culture takes time and a huge amount of PATIENCE.
Risk management professionals cannot simply expect to change a business overnight. Rome was not built in a day and the same goes for a risk-aware culture. It takes persistence, patience, and diplomacy to get there. But it can be achieved.
When seeking perfection, we must always be willing to admit we may never achieve it. Yet we must strive for it without submission.
