Organisational maturity assessment

Julien Haye

A psychologically safe workplace fuels effective risk management by encouraging open dialogue, collaborative problem-solving, and a willingness to challenge the status quo.

As Robert Iger, CEO at Disney once put it: “Nothing is more important than the quality and integrity of an organisation’s people and its product. A company’s success depends on setting high ethical standards for all things, big and small. Another way of saying this: The way you do anything is the way you do everything” (Iger, 2019). With this remark, Iger epitomised the importance of culture to drive business and risk outcomes. At its core, risk management is only as effective as an organisation’s culture allows it to be. Understanding the make-up of its DNA is paramount to establishing the mechanisms enabling success. Looking back at the organisations I have worked for, it is obvious that no two organisations are the same.

To understand how risk management and psychological safety intersect, it is necessary to perform an assessment of the culture of the organisation. I have come across many cultural assessments throughout my career and readings, of diverse levels of complexity and usefulness. I prefer to focus on