Roads to Resilience

place because: “ you get to know the staff and all the guests and really get connected rather than get sucked into your computer ” (GM Holiday Inn). And management is not about privilege: “ Sometimes I do all the things others don’t want to do... ” (VP Operations, Central Europe and Germany). Blame is avoided and the CEO has said, “ ‘We have these issues, let’s use this information to improve and fix what we are doing. It’s not about assigning blame for somebody, it’s about solving the problem’ ” (Director Global Internal Audit). Although a no-blame culture is present, at the same time the organisation constantly critiques itself. For example, the Board “ reviews itself annually, a third party comes in and does their research with each of us and we get feedback in terms of our ability to speak up and whether or not we’re talking about the right things, have the right views. There’s lots of ways that I think we can control groupthink or a line of action that would become narrowly focused ” (Regional President, the Americas and IHG Board Member). Levels of individual knowledge are also constantly assessed: “ Our CEO used to be the finance guy and he basically said, ‘Look now I’m CEO, I need to have a better understanding of what you [audit and risk management] guys are doing than perhaps I did as a CFO,’ ” (SVP Head of Global Internal Audit). An introduction training to risk management was prepared for the CEO and now that is also used for non-execs who join IHG’s Board. In the competitive hotel market, managing nine international brands that deliver clearly defined services at 4,600 hotels is no mean feat. Risk management in this environment can easily become ‘technical’ – simply focused on commonly known risks and meeting regulatory standards. However, IHG treats standards as a necessary but not sufficient component of resilience. The culture of the company is recognised by many employees as one of openness, no-blame but self-critical. IHG has a clear framework for identifying and managing many categories of risk in its hotels, but it goes further and views risk as uncertainty that can negatively impact reputation or prevent strategy being successfully implemented. Structures are in place to ensure strong risk awareness is embedded throughout the company and risk management information is constantly gathered and analysed. If a crisis emerges, experienced crisis teams quickly take over. It is the company culture and risk management capability, matched with the many clear processes for managing risk and reputation that characterises IHG’s journey to resilience. Examples of resilient practices IHG have demonstrated depth in risk management culture and capability which clearly adds to its business resilience, below are three examples: Practice 1: Broader Risk Management At the hotel level, “ Risk management is understood as managing operational risk especially in hotels and it’s about being safe from flood, fire etc. ” (VP Operations, Central Europe and Germany). Individual hotels are expected to identify potential risks, both those related to incidents and business performance: “ if a forecast goes particularly up or down, the General Manager would typically make me aware that something’s coming down the line. When it comes to accidents and incidents, that is quite different, anything that is crucial gets communicated immediately. A risk gets documented whether it’s a safety incident or whether it’s Summary

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Appendix A Case study: InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG)