4 January, 2026
I remember having a conversation with a consulting teammate a couple of years ago in which we debated whether change management and risk management are related or coupled. I argued that risk management is still relatively new, and many organizations have not yet progressed beyond maturity level two on a typical five-level maturity scale, meaning that most organizations still lack the practice of risk management.
I explained that, in most cases, a Risk Management Improvement Plan is developed to guide the organization in its risk management improvement roadmap. When examined closely, it is essentially a change management plan that uses a step by step incremental approach to enhance capabilities, skills, processes, and practices for managing risk.
Also, it looks at ways to embed and incorporate new behaviours, which requires addressing how the culture will accept and adapt to new changes and new ways of doing things along the journey of risk maturity.
My advice to those working in the management consulting industry is to look beyond definitions and never judge a book by its title; often, this requires stepping back to see the interrelationships between things that may appear unrelated from the outside, but in reality strongly complement and reinforce each other.
