How to Operationalize the NCSC Cyber Security Culture Principles (Step-by-Step)

Reading the NCSC’s cyber security culture guidance is one thing. Getting it off the PDF and into the messy reality of projects, people, and politics is something else entirely. Good news, we're here to help. 

What we've found working with global enterprises to advance security culture is that the principles are great, the operations is where it gets really challenging . Most organizations nod along with the six NCSC cyber security culture principles – of course we want security to be an enabler, of course we want trust and openness – but then struggle with the real questions:

• Who actually owns this?

• What do we do next quarter?

• How do we show progress to the board, audit, or regulators?

This article is a step-by-step guide to operationalizing the NCSC culture agenda.

We’ll show you how to move from principles on paper to a working culture operating model, using:

1. Clear outcomes

2. Governance and ownership

3. Practical interventions for each principle

4. Measurement and feedback

5. A simple, repeatable system you can run year after year

And we’ll also show where Cybermaniacs plugs in with our HumanOS™, culture model, and organizational dynamics model – because culture change is not one-size-fits-all. It has to be fit for purpose and use at your company. There is no 'off the shelf' culture! 

From Principles to Practice: Why “Operationalization” Matters

It’s easy to treat the NCSC culture principles as a nicely worded poster. But principles don’t change behavior on their own. If you want them to mean anything, you need to translate them into:

• Specific outcomes – what should be true if we’re living this principle?

• Concrete responsibilities – who is accountable for what?

• Visible actions – what changes in the way we design work, lead, train, communicate, and respond to incidents?

• Feedback loops – how we know whether any of this is working.

In other words: you need a culture operating model.

At Cybermaniacs, we treat culture as a system. It’s not just vibes and values; it’s the way your:

• HumanOS™ (the human operating system of habits, attention, emotions)

• Cyber Safety & Digital Risk culture model (how you “do” security in everyday work)

• Organizational dynamics model (who you are as an organization – structures, power, history)

all interact.

Operationalizing NCSC’s principles means changing that system on purpose, not by accident.

Step 1 – Translate the NCSC Principles into Concrete Outcomes

Start with the end in mind: What does success look like?

For each principle, write 2–3 plain-language outcome statements. They should sound like real people in your organization, not like a policy document.

Here’s a flavor (you’d customize these):

Principle 1 – Cyber as an Enabler

• “Security is involved early in projects and helps us ship safely, not slow us down at the end.”

• “When teams come to security, they expect help, not a hard ‘no.’”

Principle 2 – Trust, Safety, and Openness

• “People feel safe admitting mistakes and near-misses around cyber.”

• “We’d rather hear about an ‘almost incident’ than discover a cover-up later.”

Principle 3 – Adapt and Learn

• “We regularly update our practices based on incidents, near-misses, and changes in tech (like AI and new SaaS).”

• “Security knowledge doesn’t live in a once-a-year course; it drips through the year.”

Principle 4 – Social Norms

• “In our teams, it’s normal to report suspicious things and challenge odd requests.”

• “Workarounds are treated as signals we need to fix the system, not as clever hacks.”

Principle 5 – Leadership Ownership

• “Leaders consistently model the security behaviors they ask for.”

• “Security culture and human risk show up in leadership conversations, not just IT updates.”

Principle 6 – Usable Rules and Guidance

• “People can quickly find, understand, and follow what they’re supposed to do in common scenarios.”

• “The secure way of working is not obviously slower or more painful than the insecure way.”

Deliverable from Step 1:
A short set of “what good looks like” statements for each principle, in your language.

These become your touchstone for everything else: governance, roadmap, metrics, communications. 

Step 2 – Build Governance and Ownership Around Culture

You cannot operationalize NCSC culture principles from the security team alone. Full stop.

You need cross-functional governance and clear ownership. Otherwise, every action you take will be quietly undone by conflicting incentives and processes elsewhere. This is where your overall HRM Program Maturity and team composition come into play- are you enabled to work in this way as a team? Where should you start?

Create a cross-functional “security culture” group

Think small, focused, and empowered – not a giant talking shop.

At minimum, you want:

• Security / CISO function

• HR / People

• Comms / Internal Communications

• A representative from one or two key business lines / operations

• Risk / Compliance (depending on your sector)

Their responsibilities:

• Own the NCSC culture agenda and roadmap

• Prioritize interventions and resources

• Review metrics, incidents, and feedback from a people & culture perspective

• Champion the work into their parts of the organization

Clarify roles and responsibilities

Anyone who works with us knows we LOVE a good RACI. Clarity of responsibilities goes hand in hand with operational success, so even a simple RACI helps here. For example:

• CISO / Security – accountable for culture strategy & risk framing, coordinate the program.

• HR / People – embed culture into onboarding, performance, leadership development.

• Comms – help design campaigns, narratives, storytelling.

• Operational leaders – apply principles to how work is done in their area.

• Cybermaniacs (if you bring us in) – culture and risk baselines, Human Risk Management program design, creative content development and operational support through managed services.

Connect governance to existing structures

Don’t reinvent the whole machine. Instead:

• Plug culture into existing risk committees, change boards, and people forums.

• Ensure NCSC culture principles show up in terms of reference and agenda items (e.g., “cultural impact of this change” alongside technical risk).

Deliverable from Step 2:
A named security culture group, with clear remit and membership, plugged into existing governance.

Step 3 – Design Interventions for Each NCSC Principle

Now we get practical: what are you actually going to do differently? Think in terms of portfolios of interventions across the six principles, not one-off campaigns.

Below is a non-exhaustive menu you can choose from. 

 Principle 1 – Make Security an Enabler

• • Embed security into project and change processes

    • Security sign-in at discovery/design stage, not just pre–go-live.

  • Turn security into a consulting service

    • Offer “how to do this safely” clinics for product, ops, and business teams.

  • Reframe comms and training

    • Talk about how security protects what the organization cares about: patients, citizens, IP, revenue, trust.

  • Quick win: Create a simple “engage security early” guide for project teams – including what they get out of it.

 Principle 2 – Build Trust, Safety, and Openness

• • Rewrite incident handling language and playbooks

    • Make no-blame, learning-first language explicit.

  • Celebrate reporting, not perfection

    • “Near miss of the month” stories; shout-outs for early reporting.

  • Get leaders to share their own mistakes

    • Human stories from execs and managers: “I nearly clicked that link…”

  • Quick win: Add one question to your next survey: “I feel safe admitting a cyber-related mistake.” Then share and act on the results.

 Principle 3 – Create Continuous Learning

• • Move from annual training to ongoing microlearning and nudges

    • Short, targeted content tied to real incidents and changes.

  • Use incidents and near-misses as fuel

    • After-action reviews → updated guidance + new stories + new learning modules.

  • Keep content fresh around new tech (AI, new tools, new processes)

    • Don’t let people get all their “how to use AI safely” guidance from random blogs.

  • Quick win: After your next security incident, publish a short, human-friendly “What we learned and what we’re changing” note.

 Principle 4 – Shape Social Norms

• • Map existing norms

    • In workshops or interviews, ask: “Around here, what do people really do about X?”

  • Create peer examples and positive deviants

    • Highlight teams who handle security well, and how.

  • Use narrative and humor

    • Stories, characters, micro-dramas that show “people like us” doing the secure thing under pressure.

  • Quick win: Run a short team exercise: “What’s normal in our team when we get a suspicious email?” – then agree the behavior you want to be normal.

 Principle 5 – Engage and Equip Leaders

• • Leader briefings and talking points

    • Provide 1-page briefings for leaders to use in town halls and team meetings.

  • Exec experiences

    • Simulations, immersive scenarios, VR experiences that emotionally land the human risk story.

  • Make culture part of leadership objectives

    • Include security culture in goals and performance expectations.

  • Quick win: Ask your top leaders to record a 60–90 second video about why security culture matters and one behavior they personally commit to.

 Principle 6 – Make Rules and Guidance Usable

• • Turn policies into playbooks

    • Short, scenario-based guides, decision trees, and checklists instead of 30-page PDFs.

  • Fix friction

    • Where people are constantly working around a process, treat it as a design problem, not a discipline problem.

  • Co-design with users

    • Involve real staff in testing updated policies, forms, and flows.

  • Quick win: Pick one high-friction process (like access requests) and map it from the user’s perspective. Where can you simplify, shorten, or clarify?

Deliverable from Step 3:
A portfolio of interventions mapped to each principle, with owners and rough timelines.

This could be as simple as a spreadsheet or as slick as a roadmap in your project tool – what matters is that it’s visible and actionable.

Step 4 – Build Feedback Loops and Measurement

You can’t run culture as a serious program if you have no feedback. You don’t need perfect data on day one, but you do need enough to steer.

A simple NCSC-aligned measurement stack looks like this:

1. Perception & Climate

• Short surveys and pulses on:

  • trust and safety (Principle 2)

  • attitudes to security as enabler/blocker (Principle 1)

  • leadership example (Principle 5)

  • clarity and usability of rules (Principle 6)

2. Behavior

• Reporting trends:

  • phishing, near-misses, concerns.

• Engagement:

  • participation in campaigns, learning, simulations.

• Everyday secure behaviors:

  • MFA usage, password manager adoption, data handling choices (where measurable).

3. Operations & Structure

• Early engagement:

  • % of major changes with security involved at discovery/design.

• Process indicators:

  • time to approve secure access, implement secure ways of working.

• Governance:

  • how often culture/human risk appears in leadership/board discussions.

You don’t need dozens of metrics. A handful per principle is plenty to start.

Set a quarterly rhythm:

• Your security culture group meets

• Reviews data and stories

• Adds new ideas and fixes to a culture change backlog

• Prioritizes the next cycle of actions

Deliverable from Step 4:
A basic culture scorecard and a regular review rhythm.

Step 5 – Tie It All Together in a Simple Operating Model

At this point you have:

• clear outcomes per principle

• governance and owners

• interventions and quick wins

• a basic measurement stack

Now you need a simple operating model to hold it all together.

We like a five-stage loop:

1. Discover – baseline your culture and human risk (surveys, interviews, data, incidents).

2. Design – decide which principles and outcomes to focus on, and design interventions.

3. Deliver – run campaigns, change processes, update training, engage leaders.

4. Measure – track perception, behavior, and operations.

5. Improve – learn, adjust, and feed insights into the next cycle.

Run that loop across a 12-month roadmap, then repeat and deepen.

This is where the NCSC principles move from “things we agree with” to how we run the human side of cyber.

How Cybermaniacs Fits into Your NCSC Culture Operating Model

You can absolutely do a lot of this yourself.

Where we typically help organizations is where capacity, creativity, or expertise become bottlenecks.

We plug into your operating model by:

• Discover

  • Running NCSC-aligned culture and human risk baselines using our HumanOS™, culture, and organizational dynamics models.

• Design

  • Co-creating NCSC-aligned roadmaps, intervention portfolios, and measurement frameworks.

• Deliver

  • Bringing the creative engine: characters, stories, interactive content, simulations, and campaigns that land emotionally and cognitively.

  • Supporting exec/leadership sessions with bespoke experiences.

• Measure & Improve

  • Helping you interpret signals, refine interventions, and keep the loop going.

Our goal is simple: help you move from “we understand the NCSC guidance” to “we run a living, breathing NCSC-aligned culture system.”

Common Pitfalls When Operationalizing NCSC Cyber Culture (and How to Avoid Them)

You’ll look smart if you avoid these, so let’s name them:

1. Treating the principles as a checklist

   • “We’ve got a slide for each principle” is not operationalization.

   • Fix: focus on outcomes and systems, not just mapping exercises.

2. Doing it all from the security team

   • Without HR, Comms, Operations, and leadership, you’re swimming upstream.

   • Fix: set up that cross-functional culture group early.

3. Over-relying on training and comms

   • More content won’t fix broken processes, incentives, or leadership behavior.

   • Fix: always ask “What system change sits under this message?”

4. Waiting for perfect data before starting

   • You’ll never have it.

   • Fix: start with a few good indicators and refine as you go.

5. Trying to do everything at once

   • Six principles × entire organization = overwhelm.

   • Fix: pick 1–2 principles and a few high-risk areas as your first wave.

Key Takeaways and a 60-Day Starter Plan

If you remember nothing else:

• NCSC’s cyber security culture principles are not a poster. They’re a design brief for how your human stack should work.

• To operationalize them, you need:

  • outcomes,

  • governance,

  • interventions,

  • measurement, and

  • a simple operating model you can run year on year.

• Culture is not one-size-fits-all. Your HumanOS, cyber safety & digital risk culture model, and organizational dynamics make your implementation unique – but the principles still hold.

A 60-day starter plan

If you want a concrete “do this next” list:

Days 1–15

• Form your security culture group (small but empowered).

• Draft 2–3 “what good looks like” statements per NCSC principle.

Days 16–30

• Map your current activities (training, phishing, comms, key processes) against those principles.

• Identify your top 2 principles to focus on first.

Days 31–45

• Design a handful of targeted interventions for those two principles (including at least one process change, not just a comms piece).

• Define a small set of perception, behavior, and operational metrics to track them.

Days 46–60

• Launch first interventions.

• Set your quarterly culture review rhythm.

• Prepare a short NCSC-aligned culture update for your leadership or board.

From there, you’re not just “aligned with NCSC.” You’re running a living culture system that makes secure behavior the normal way of working.