How do you foster a risk-aware and resilient culture in your organization using ISO 31000 guidelines?

Fostering a risk-aware and resilient culture using ISO 31000 starts with leading by example. I champion open dialogues about risks and encourage team members to voice concerns and insights. By integrating risk management into everyday activities, it becomes a natural part of our workflow. Training sessions and workshops help demystify risk management, turning it into a shared responsibility. Recognizing and rewarding proactive risk identification reinforces its importance. Through transparent communication and continuous learning, we create a culture where resilience isn't just a policy—it's embedded in our mindset, ensuring we navigate uncertainties with confidence and agility.

To manage risks well, it's crucial to really understand both what's happening inside your organization and what's going on in the world around it. This means getting a clear picture of your goals, what your organization stands for, and how it operates, as well as keeping an eye on external challenges and opportunities. Using simple tools like SWOT for internal insights and PESTLE for external trends can help you see the bigger picture. Adding in stakeholder mapping and thinking about different future scenarios can also prepare you to make smarter decisions, helping your organization not just avoid pitfalls but also find new paths to success.

Anything that threatens a company's ability to achieve its goals is considered a business risk. Threats are of different nature, political, legal, ethics and compliance, market, operational, financial, people, society, reputational, economic, competition, technology, ... . It is about evaluating the friction at its touchpoints with reality and identifying how events outside the preferred version of reality have a potential to disturb the expected outcome. Therefore it needs a diverse set of minds to get a wide set of perspectives and pressure test own assumptions to surface potential diversive factors. An inclusive review of diverse sources of information and observation without judgment allow to have a fresh view to reflect on.

Promoting a risk-aware and resilient culture begins with understanding the organization's internal and external context as outlined in ISO 31000. By conducting a thorough analysis of the organizational environment, including stakeholder expectations and regulatory requirements, you can tailor risk management practices to address specific challenges. This context-awareness ensures that risk management efforts are relevant and aligned with organizational needs, fostering a culture that recognizes and addresses risks proactively.

Creating a structured framework as per ISO 31000 guidelines is essential for embedding a resilient and risk-aware culture in your organization. This involves defining risk policies, objectives, and processes that align with the organization's strategy. Regular training and clear communication of the risk management framework help in building awareness and commitment among employees, ensuring that everyone understands their role in risk management. This structured approach not only mitigates risks effectively but also instills a sense of shared responsibility and resilience across the organization.

Start by making risk management part of everyday conversations. Encourage open discussions about risks in team meetings, and recognize individuals who proactively address potential issues. This nurtures an environment where risk awareness is seen as everyone's business, not just that of the risk management department.

First realize the relief of having it identified and described. In the dark, fear is the result of a lack of vision, leaving our mind without any relatable pattern. In business, being aware of the risk is adding to our vision forward. It helps to use the risk as an opportunity to rethink, check own assumptions and get further perspectives, potentially identifying innovative tweaks. Some risks are covered by an insurance, others need careful maneuvering to be avoided. This is a creative and intuitive challenge that allows us to respond, giving us the sense of control and thus encouraging us. Be honest when deciding on the response, in terms of feasibility and chance of success. Pull in experts and advice as needed, learn from others.

Additionally, celebrate successes in risk management. Share stories where effective risk management led to positive outcomes, such as averting potential crises or seizing opportunities that others might have missed. This not only highlights the value of being risk-aware but also reinforces the behavior you want to see.

Share your experience and success stories with your peers. Help them to embrace risk management for their personal development. Make it part of your company culture to talk about it even if shortly during gatherings, reminding each other of how empowering it is to know the risks covered. Very important: throughpout the process support an open and fearless culture, encourage the vivid exchange and truly active observation and listening, making every perspective count double, by its additional view and by its contribution to understanding the filters others use in seeing the world. This makes us strong as a team and over time, embracing risk management, we are more focused on the opportunities than on our fears.