Culture, risk and organisational performance: why systems matter
- John R Childress
- Nov 1, 2024
- 3 min read
Culture is often cited as a cause of failure after things go wrong.
This insight piece explains why organisations struggle to manage culture proactively and how treating culture as a measurable system helps leaders reduce risk and improve performance.
Why culture is blamed after failure
Culture is often noticed only when outcomes deteriorate.
In major incidents and performance failures, reviews frequently point to “culture” as a contributing factor. Yet culture is rarely defined clearly or addressed systematically before problems emerge.
This creates a familiar pattern: culture is discussed after the fact, but not governed as a business risk in advance. As a result, organisations repeat the same mistakes despite lessons learned.
The limits of traditional culture initiatives
Awareness and values alone do not change outcomes.
Many culture programmes focus on engagement surveys, leadership messaging, values statements and training. These initiatives can raise awareness, but they do not explain why people make the decisions they do under pressure.
Without understanding the conditions shaping everyday work, leaders are left addressing symptoms rather than causes. This is why improvements often fade once attention shifts elsewhere.
Culture as a system of risk and performance
Outcomes reflect how organisational elements interact.
The article argues that culture is best understood as a system: a network of organisational factors that influence how work is prioritised, how rules are interpreted, and how risk is managed.
These factors include leadership behaviour, policies, incentives, structures, technology, supervision, and informal norms. Together, they shape what actually happens in practice — not what is written in procedures.
Making culture governable
You cannot manage what you cannot see.
Treating culture as a system allows leaders to move beyond anecdote and opinion. By mapping the organisational ecosystem, it becomes possible to identify drivers that are enabling performance and those that are quietly creating risk.
This shift gives boards and executives a clearer basis for governance, enabling culture to be discussed with the same discipline as financial, operational or safety risk.
Identifying drivers and root causes
Risk emerges from conditions, not isolated behaviours.
Rather than focusing on individual behaviour as the primary lever, a systems view highlights how organisational conditions combine to influence decisions.
When drivers such as time pressure, incentive design, supervision quality or policy usability are misaligned, even well-intentioned people are pushed toward unsafe or non-compliant choices. Addressing these drivers reduces risk at source.
Prioritising change with evidence
Not all interventions have equal impact.
One of the challenges leaders face is deciding where to focus limited time and resources. A systems approach makes it possible to compare potential interventions and prioritise those most likely to improve outcomes.
This is where What-If analysis becomes practical — allowing leaders to test changes before implementing them and focus on actions that will materially reduce risk and improve performance.
What leaders should take from this
Culture improves when it is treated as a business system.
For executives and boards, the implications are practical:
Treat culture as a governable system, not an abstract concept
Focus on drivers and root causes rather than surface behaviours
Map the organisational ecosystem across people, policies and technology
Prioritise interventions based on impact, not effort or familiarity
Track leading indicators so progress is visible before failures occur
This approach underpins how PYXIS supports organisations across safety, cyber security, and conduct and compliance.
Key topics covered in this article
Why culture is often addressed only after failures occur
The limitations of traditional culture and engagement programmes
Defining culture as a system of organisational drivers
Linking culture to risk and performance outcomes
Making culture visible and governable for leaders and boards
Identifying root causes rather than behavioural symptoms
Prioritising culture change using evidence and impact
About PYXIS Culture Technologies
PYXIS Culture Technologies helps organisations understand and improve the cultural drivers of performance, safety, and cyber resilience.
By combining deep research, operational experience, and advanced culture analytics, we help organisations close the gap between strategy and everyday behaviour.
Our approach is effective:
We treat culture as a systemic business issue, not an HR initiative.
We identify key internal business practices that create performance and risk challenges and provide effective solutions you can immediately implement.
We link organisational culture to business and financial metrics, showing a clear ROI for strengthening performance.
Connecting the dots
See how PYXIS models What-If scenarios to prioritise the fixes that move your numbers.