I’ve been doing some reading again lately about 'Just Culture', and this quote stopped me.

Sir Liam Donaldson is a British doctor and former Chief Medical Officer for England who has been a significant voice in patient safety and learning from failure.

And it got me thinking about Boards, Executives and risk management.

We spend a lot of time talking about risk registers, controls, policies, reporting and assurance.

All important. 

But there is another question I think Boards and Executives should be asking:

Have we created a culture where people will actually tell us when something has gone wrong? Because if people are worried that admitting a mistake will automatically result in blame or punishment, there is a pretty good chance we won't hear about some things until they become much bigger things.

That is where 'Just Culture' comes in.

A Just Culture isn't a blame free culture. It doesn't remove individual accountability.

It is about responding fairly and understanding the difference between human error, at risk behaviour and reckless behaviour.

Sometimes the response needs to be support and learning.

Sometimes it needs to be coaching and a change in systems or processes.

And sometimes it needs to be accountability.

For Boards and Executives, perhaps the risk question isn't only:

“What went wrong?”

But also:

“Did our culture make it safe for someone to tell us?”

Because good risk management isn't just about preventing things from going wrong.

It is also about what happens next when they inevitably do.