DEAL AND KENNEDY’S RISK AND FEEDBACK MODEL
Use to identify the level of risk and feedback that is culturally acceptable in your organisation.
Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy suggest that the basis of organisational culture is determined by the degrees of risk and speed of feedback which govern how the organisation functions. They identified four distinct types of culture.
Source: Adapted from ‘Risk & Feedback Model’ from Deal, T. E. and Kennedy, A. A., Corporate Cultures: Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (Penguin, 1988) Courtesy of Peters, Fraser & Dunlop.
Work hard/play hard: This is a culture that takes few risks because of issues such as health and safety but needs quick feedback in terms of customer satisfaction.
Tough guy, macho: Includes a world of individualists who regularly take high risks and get quick feedback on whether their actions are right or wrong.
Bet your company: In this culture people take high-risk decisions, but they may wait years before they know whether their actions actually paid off.
Process: This can also be described as a bureaucratic culture. It exists where risks are low and feedback is slow.
A well-aligned culture that responds positively to risk and feedback can propel an organisation to success.
HOW TO USE IT
- List a number of decisions that your organisation has taken in the last 12–18 months. Analyse these into low, medium and high risk. Then consider how quickly the organisation expects to receive feedback on the success or failure of each decision. This will give you the organisation’s risk feedback profile.
- Consider what level of risk you are willing to take. This requires more than just a superficial appraisal. Think of any decisions that kept you awake at night. They are a good indicator of the level of risk/uncertainty you can cope with. Accept these as your benchmark and compare them to the organisation’s profile. If you are too cautious or too adventurous for the organisation you should seriously consider packing your bags, unless you can change the organisation’s culture (see Theories 85 and 86) to match your power to effect change to the risk profile.
- Provided any gap identified is bridgeable don’t mess around. Work out where the differences are between how you act and the behaviour expected by the organisation. Then devise an action plan to close the gaps using the SMART targets (see Theory 97).
- In your everyday work and dealings with staff model the behaviour expected of managers by the organisation (see Theories 11, 12 and 13). If they want a task-focused, hungry young manager who is willing to take risks to get to the top, you have no choice but to give it to them. After all, that’s what you signed up for.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
- What types of behaviour gets rewarded in my organisation?
- Am I comfortable with the level of risk that managers are expected to take? Is it too high or low for me?