The 1970s was a decade of flying dangerously. The fastest passenger jet ever created was launched at a time that coincided with a record number of fatal aviation accidents. The causes of these crashes were often human-related, exacerbated by poor designs and inadequate systems. In response, regulators, aircraft manufacturers, and operators adopted a whole-of-system approach to ‘design out’ the risk of human or technical fallibility – to the extent that aviation became the safest way to travel.

However, the lessons of the past were not enduring. Boeing’s launch of the 737 MAX was marred by two fatal crashes, with subsequent investigations concluding that Boeing’s organisational culture championed the pursuit of profit over safety, incubating a culture of concealment. The FAA also came under scrutiny for their lack of technical expertise which created an over-reliance on manufacturers – “like dogs watching TV”. Regulatory capture debilitated a critical line of defence for aviation safety. The once successful whole-of-system philosophy was set aside.

Although the analogy between the airline industry and the banking sector is not perfect, there are many culture similarities. The GFC was a period of financial turmoil, with a wave of bank failures, bailouts, and credit crunches. The triggers of this crisis were similarly seated in organisational culture. While the focus in aviation centred on improving quality and safety, the focus in banking often meant responding to tighter regulation – adding costly and complicated layers of risk and compliance oversight through programs of remediation.

Consequently, the proliferation of new culture-related approaches and risk classes (instead of culture being a factor in the management of key risk classes) has compartmentalised culture - fragmenting accountability and agency to effect whole-of-system change for the long term.

With many organisations moving beyond periods of remediation, now is the opportune time to reflect and refine existing risk culture / behaviour risk approaches to improve their efficiency and impact.

Just like the Concorde, many organisations continue allocating scarce resources (money, time, and attention) into overlapping culture-related activities across three lines models that no longer have the required utility in an increasingly complicated regulatory, economic, and threat landscape.