My 11-year old came home from school this week and told me he got into trouble and was sent to the office. At lunch, he was horsing around with his buddies and threw some lunch meats at each other. Fortunately, no one was injured. I asked him if was going to do that again, he said no, and that was the end of it. He replied how glad he was that he could tell me the Truth. After all, if I yelled at him every time he screwed up, he would lie or keep secrets. I believe I have created a great relationship with him and a positive culture that promotes the Truth.
My approach is simple: shit happens. And the same applies to your organizations: Let’s learn. Let’s not blame. Let’s not do it again. Without embedding a positive culture into your risk management program, all you have is compliance.
Could not agree more, however, the devil lies in the details.
Culture and leadership are hard to define quantities, but both create the settings for what you seek. A culture that accepts mistakes as an inevitable occasional consequence of operations requires either a clear message from the very top of the firm or actions by very strong managers to shield their employees from retribution.
Neither of these are impossible – but they are rare.
I couldn’t agree more about the openness. The negative cycle that is caused by discouraging honesty fosters the potentially doubling down mentality when moderate loss events happen. WIth opennes, that is never a possibility.
But there are two types of mistakes. Mistakes that are within authority and mistakes that include stepping outside. Those that include stepping outside authority are mistakes that are intentional, usually known BEFORE they are initiated. I would be alot less forgiving of that second type.
It sounds like you’re creating problems yourself by trying to solve this issue instead of looking at why their is a problem in the first place
Your blog is so informative … keep up the good work!!!!
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