Stage 5: Measure and Sustain - Assessing Impact and Maintaining Momentum in Your Risk Culture Journey

Welcome to the final article in our five-part series on building a strong risk culture. 

In the previous stage, we focused on executing and embedding your risk culture strategy to drive tangible change in risk management practices. Now, it's time to shift our attention to “Stage 5: Measure and Sustain”.

Why Measurement and Sustainability Matter

Measuring the impact of your risk culture efforts is essential for:

• Demonstrating the value and ROI of your risk culture strategy

• Identifying areas of success and opportunities for improvement

• Keeping senior leaders and stakeholders engaged and supportive

• Enabling data-driven decision-making and resource allocation

• Celebrating progress and maintaining momentum for ongoing change

Sustaining your risk culture over time is equally important for:

• Confirming that risk management remains a priority as business conditions evolve

• Embedding risk awareness and ownership into the fabric of your organisation

• Continuously adapting and improving your approach based on lessons learned

• Preparing your organisation to navigate new and emerging risks effectively

• Building long-term resilience and competitive advantage

Without a focus on measurement and sustainability, your risk culture transformation may lose steam or fail to deliver lasting impact.

Key Elements of Risk Culture Measurement and Sustainability

1. Defining success metrics

   Develop a balanced set of metrics that align with your risk culture strategy and objectives. These may include:

   • Risk management effectiveness: Reduction in risk incidents, improved risk mitigation, faster issue resolution

   • Risk awareness and understanding: Employee survey scores, training completion rates, risk champion engagement

   • Risk-informed decision-making: Integration of risk in strategic planning, project delivery, and performance management

   • Stakeholder confidence: Feedback from regulators, customers, and partners on your organisation's risk management

2. Establishing a measurement framework

   Create a structured approach for collecting, analysing, and reporting on your risk culture metrics. This may involve:

   • Identifying data sources and owners for each metric

   • Setting targets and thresholds for success

   • Defining roles and responsibilities for measurement and reporting

   • Aligning measurement with existing risk governance and reporting cycles

   • Leveraging technology and data analytics to streamline measurement

3. Communicating progress and impact

   Share the results of your risk culture measurement efforts with key stakeholders, including senior leaders, employees, and external parties. Use a mix of quantitative data and qualitative stories to bring your progress to life and build ongoing support for your risk culture strategy.

4. Integrating measurement into business rhythms

   Embed risk culture measurement into your organisation's ongoing business rhythms, such as:

   • Strategic planning and budgeting cycles

   • Risk and performance reporting to senior leaders and the board

   • Employee performance and development processes

   • Internal and external audit and assurance activities

   • Regular business reviews and decision-making forums

5. Ongoing learning and improvement

   Use insights from your risk culture measurement to continuously learn, adapt, and improve your approach. This may involve:

   • Conducting root cause analysis on risk incidents or control failures

   • Identifying and sharing best practices and success stories

   • Seeking feedback and ideas from employees and stakeholders

   • Benchmarking your risk culture maturity against industry peers

   • Investing in new skills, tools, and technologies to support risk culture sustainability

6. Leadership commitment and accountability

   Engage senior leaders in the ongoing oversight and accountability for risk culture sustainability. This may include:

• Regular risk culture updates and discussions at the board and executive level

• Clear roles and responsibilities for risk culture leadership across the organisation

• Inclusion of risk culture objectives in senior leader performance scorecards

• Visible leadership participation in risk culture events and communications

• Succession planning and talent development for key risk culture roles

Tips for Effective Risk Culture Measurement and Sustainability

1. Keep it simple and focused
   Start with a small set of key metrics that are most relevant to your risk culture objectives. Avoid overwhelming stakeholders with too much data or complexity. Over time, you can expand and refine your measurement approach as your risk culture maturity grows.
   

2. Align with business value and key outcomes
   Communicate the linkage between risk culture metrics and business outcomes, such as regulatory obligations (e.g. under FAR and CPS230) improved financial performance, enhanced reputation, or increased customer satisfaction. This helps demonstrate the value of risk culture beyond just compliance or risk avoidance.
   

3. Celebrate successes and milestones
   Regularly acknowledge and celebrate progress in your risk culture journey. This can include recognising teams or individuals who exemplify your risk culture principles, sharing success stories, or marking key milestones with organisation-wide events. Celebration helps sustain energy and enthusiasm for ongoing change.
   

4. Foster a learning mindset
   Position risk culture measurement as an opportunity for continuous learning and improvement, rather than a punitive exercise. Encourage open and honest sharing of challenges and setbacks, and create a safe environment for experimentation and innovation in risk management practices.
   

5. Plan for leadership transitions
   Develop a robust succession planning and talent development process to ensure continuity of risk culture leadership over time. This includes identifying and grooming future risk culture leaders, as well as building risk management capabilities across all levels of the organisation.

Next Steps

Measuring and sustaining your risk culture is an ongoing journey, not a one-time destination. By committing to regular measurement, communication, and continuous improvement, you can embed risk management into the DNA of your organisation and build long-term resilience and success.

Congratulations on completing the 5 stages of building a strong risk culture! You now have a comprehensive roadmap for transforming your organisation's risk management practices and driving lasting change.

If you need support in measuring and sustaining your risk culture, I'm here to help. With extensive experience in risk culture transformation across industries, I can work with you to develop a tailored measurement framework, communicate progress and impact, and embed risk management into your organisation's ways of working. 

Get in touch today to discuss how we can work together to bring your risk culture to life: reach out via LinkedIn or Submit an Online Enquiry.