You have heard the term “Tone from the Top”. To operationalise your RAS you are going to need to “ding the bell” to make sure the leadership team are delivering the right tone. When I say leadership team, I’m talking the broader leadership team, not the Executive that worked with the Board to establish the RAS. Hopefully they are onboard.
I used to say that a RAS was between the Board and the Executive and not to publish it broadly because a RAS is difficult to interpret if you weren’t part of the conversation in the first place. Just make sure your policies, processes and systems reflect the RAS. Yes, some sharing of the RAS with leaders outside the Executive was needed but not en masse.
Over the years, staff in organisations have become more sophisticated when it comes to enterprise risk management. Extended leadership teams needed to both understand the RAS, and wanted to. They wanted to understand it so they could get on with their jobs and lead, rather than take a punt they were doing the right thing or having to refer decisions because they weren’t confident to take a punt.
This has meant I have had the opportunity to work with extended leadership teams in many organisations to help them understand the purpose and importance of a RAS and to discuss with them how best to operationalise the RAS. During these sessions I tell them about Herbert Simon’s book Administrative Behaviour I wrote about last week and impress on them to review their policies and procedures as needs be.
The other tip is for leaders to sit down with their teams to discuss a past decision or a pending decision using the RAS. These statements are so nuanced it takes a conversation such as these to convey the real meaning of the RAS. My tip is to do this not once, but as many times as needed, to be comfortable the RAS is well understood. Even then sometimes team members will need help and that is where decision support tools come in. More on that next week.
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