Roads to Resilience

series of actions which felt intuitive. What I found interesting was that we found ourselves teaching the neighbouring international hotels our methods and our practices. ” (Regional President, the Americas and IHG Board Member). The IHG Risk Management team’s strategy is to embed appropriate practices in the business and building capability. “ The team has created a comprehensive set of electronic tools, checklists and training materials, which can be accessed by all corporate employees and at every hotel. Over 100 different training materials have been prepared, including risk management policies and procedures, checklists, templates, posters, videos, e-learning and access to face-to-face training, which underpins the risk management framework. Investing in risk training plays a vital role in embedding risk management capability throughout our business. ” (SVP Head of Global Risk Management) Four main aspects of leadership at IHG stand out. The focus on managing risk and reputation; the ‘tone’ of interactions; a pragmatic view that managers should know what is happening in the front-line; and a no-blame culture that still manages to be self-critical. The company’s focus on risk and reputation management is led from the top. The Board “ talk a lot about our business reputation, it’s always something that is on top-of-mind in every board meeting. We talk about the largest types of risk and we talk about things that are going on in the business ” (Regional President, the Americas and IHG Board Member). The risk section of the annual report states: “ The Board aims to embed proactive risk management capability and culture throughout the business. In achieving this, the Board is supported by the General Counsel and Company Secretary and the Heads of Global Risk Management and Global Internal Audit. ” 10 The commitment from top management is to, “ assign each risk to one or more members of our Executive Committee – they have ultimate responsibility for each of the major risks ” (SVP Head of Global Internal Audit). This risk and reputation focus cascades down through the organisation: “ each leadership team will have a risk register, be it IT, HR, Finance whoever it is. They’ve all got their risk register, and action plans ” (SVP Head of Global Risk Management). The way employees interact and the ‘tone’ of those interactions is also something that senior managers know to be crucial. “ There’s a lot of respect for people and people are treated well and if people are not performing, they are told that but there is a right and wrong way to do that ” (Director Global Internal Audit). Openness is encouraged and the CEO reinforces this by saying that in “ senior leadership meetings, he expects everyone to participate and speak up and that there is no right or wrong answer, everyone’s entitled to a viewpoint. That doesn’t mean he’ll agree with everything, doesn’t mean others will agree, but the worse thing to do is to not have a viewpoint and to be quiet. So, that’s tone at the top again ” (Director Global Internal Audit). This focus on open discussion was a consistent message “ The one thing that I’m going to be really disappointed in you is if you don’t challenge me ” (General Counsel and Company Secretary) Leaders at every level in IHG are focused on understanding the front-end, the operational aspects of the business. For example, in a Holiday Inn Express, a manager talked about constantly leading through example in the front-line (including clearing tables and cleaning). She had even moved her office to the reception area where most of the interaction between guests and staff takes Leadership and Governanace

10 From 2012 Annual Report, p38. See http://www.ihgplc.com/index.asp?pageid=326

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Roads to Resilience: Building dynamic approaches to risk to achieve future success