Does your management team fully understand the principles and the main mechanics of managing risk? Last week I wrote about better business practice and the use of simple business language to communicate what is actually good risk management. In 2024 you could ask; Do we really have to dumb down our language? Should business leaders not know the main principles and mechanics?

While I could highlight the scarcity of risk management skills amongst many in the workforce, and our role in transferring those skills, the real gold is in adapting risk management principles into traditional roles such as finance, HR, IT, procurement, marketing and of course, operations. Don’t make someone have to move from the procurement framework to the risk framework to find out about “that other stuff that I have to do”. It should be seen as good business practice in procurement.

Put another way, embedding better business practice in “the way we do things around here”.

How do you go about that? When I help design a Risk Management Framework, I always recommend preparing a diagram that shows how operational risk is being managed right now. It will include things like Asset Management Plans, Procurement Systems, Client Screening Tools for a consulting arm and there are thousands more examples I could share. The point is, you don’t need to build something new, you simply have to work with the owners of these frameworks, systems and tools to ensure they apply the principles of risk management in decision making.

A tip: map out all the various frameworks across your business and colour code them red, amber or green for how well good risk management principles are already embedded within them.

You’ll know what to do next.