A culture supportive of organizational resilience
A culture that supports resilience shows common convictions, guiding beliefs, a constructive outlook and conduct. The organization should determine its culture, identify the values and behaviour that strengthen resilience, engage people, foster innovation, empower people to raise threats and opportunities, and monitor the culture for change.
What clause 5.5 says
The clause treats culture as behaviour rather than proclamation. It lists six activities. The first is to determine the beliefs, values and behaviour that define the culture, which requires evidence rather than assumption. The second identifies the values and behaviour that enhance resilience and builds them into how individual performance is assessed. The third engages people at all levels. The fourth fosters creativity and innovation. The fifth lets people spot and report risks and openings, and act on them. The sixth monitors the culture for changes that may affect resilience. The sequence matters: diagnose, define, engage, enable, and keep watching. A culture programme that stops at engagement events will not change how people behave under pressure.
Why it matters
Culture is where a resilience programme is either believed or ignored. If raising a concern is punished, the risk register will be quiet and the organization will be surprised. If innovation is celebrated but the core service is unstable, the organization may adapt in the wrong direction. The clause asks for a culture that supports both candour and delivery. It does not ask for a particular national culture or a personality test. It asks the organization to observe what people actually do and to change the conditions that produce the behaviour.
What good looks like
Collect behavioural evidence from three sources: what people say in safe conversations, what the decision and reward records show, and what happens after someone raises a concern. Compare the three. Where they disagree, the decision record is usually closest to the truth. Choose two behaviours to strengthen in the next six months and change one system, such as a reward or a review meeting, to support each. Measure the behaviour, not the sentiment.
Evidence a reviewer asks for
There is no ISO certification or accredited assessment scheme for ISO 22316. The assessor here is your internal auditor, a customer assurance team or a consultant.
An assessor will ask for a case where someone raised a difficult issue and the organization acted. A survey result alone will not show whether the culture supports resilience.
- Culture diagnosis The behaviours observed, the sources used and the pattern found
- Resilience behaviours The two or three behaviours the organization is trying to strengthen, defined in observable terms
- Performance link How those behaviours appear in objectives, development and reward
- Speak-up evidence What happens after a concern is raised, including a case and its outcome
- Culture monitor The indicators watched for change and the last reading
Where it commonly fails
- Culture is assessed only by an engagement score.
- The values are displayed but the reward system rewards a different behaviour.
- People who raise concerns are managed out or labelled difficult.
What to do before the second edition
Run a listening session with no managers present and ask what makes it hard to raise a concern. Then trace one concern to its outcome. Fix the route before publishing another values campaign.
Read across
- 5.2 Shared vision and clarity of purpose
- 5.4 Effective and empowered leadership
- 5.6 Shared information and knowledge
- 6.3.1 Methods and processes
← 5.4 Effective and empowered leadership5.6 Shared information and knowledge →