My colleague David Dowe and I were chatting recently.\u00a0 We got onto thinking about what it takes for an enterprise to be \u2018governed\u2019 well and to avoid governing systems going wrong (or at least not work well enough).<\/p>\n
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There is a wide variety of ways organisations are established and led from owner run SMEs to the largest offices of State. \u2018Governance\u2019 is more likely to be explicitly discussed and not just assumed where there are formal structures such as Company Boards with non-executives, Charities with Trustees or campaign Steering Committees.<\/p>\n
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For many years now, there has been a bit of a fashion for \u2018Good Governance\u2019.\u00a0 What does that mean \u2013 and how can it be assured?<\/p>\n
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In answering this question, we have drawn on our experience of working in all sorts of environments over the last couple of years: from technology accelerators to school systems; professional associations to conservation charities; improvement projects to academic institutions.<\/p>\n
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So, this is our governance \u2018top ten\u2019:<\/p>\n
1) \u00a0 The FRE framework<\/a> for organisational success brings three fundamental roles for governing groups to mind.\u00a0 The first part of FRE is thinking of Focus<\/em>: is the purpose of the organisation shared? Is the strategy clear \u2013 is it understood? Has the governing group set out its intentions (and limitations) for the wider staff to work toward and within?\u00a0Second in the FRE framework is taking Responsibility<\/em>: do governing boards avoid overstepping the mark and resist micro-managing the executive? The third part of FRE is the\u00a0Example<\/em> of senior leaders, including board members or trustees, in setting the cultural tone for an enterprise.\u00a0 This is a crucial, and often neglected, role of those involved in the governance of an organisation.\u00a0 The remainder of this checklist probes further into this territory of direction, scope and culture.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2) \u00a0 Governing groups are often expected to be many things: a sounding board giving advice; maybe providing a sort of litmus test before an idea is rolled out; and frequently a decision-making body too.\u00a0 It is a heady mix trying to be a critical friend to the executives and part of checks and balances in securing the best decisions and way forward.\u00a0 It is necessary to be clear on the scope of the governing roles \u2013 and to be sure that the governing group has the skills, and more important, the attention and awareness to do the job.\u00a0 Is the group clear what its primary purposes are? Does it spend time giving an overall direction with an overall strategy?\u00a0 Does it recruit and support a good CEO and then give them a clear sense of their autonomy and limitations, including how their performance will be reviewed?\u00a0\u00a0 How far is the governing group involved in assuring itself that overall goals are being achieved, the finances are secure\u00a0and the best possible organisational culture is established?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3) \u00a0 There are many cautionary tales of governing groups failing to take an interest, or get an accurate impression of, organisation culture (for example<\/a>). \u00a0Many boards govern through dashboards and metrics – but organisation leaders\u00a0can game the measures and Boards find them hard to discern.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4) \u00a0 The mechanics of governing group meetings can be inefficient with an astonishing amount of managerial time spent preparing for board meetings, reporting, following up issues.\u00a0 There can be a degree of gaming and a seeming disconnect from the actual business sometimes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 5) \u00a0 Finding ways to keep in touch with both team delivery and organisation performance without overstepping the line into micro-management is a key balance and challenge for governing groups.\u00a0 Boards tend to deal in papers and presentations.\u00a0 It is very hard to really understand what staff are feeling and know whether the CEO is doing a great job or not. Their information often comes from others inside and outside of the organisation which introduces a time lag.\u00a0 Finding ways for the Board to get early warnings of unrest, confusion and non-attainment are important. Useful indicators can be the experience\u00a0of interacting with staff who are only occasionally and unexpectedly encountered\u00a0further into the organisation, spending time out and about and being alert to \u2018weak signals\u2019 (e.g. through complaints).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 6) \u00a0 In doing its difficult work, is the governing group willing to have Critical conversations<\/a>\u00a0not just around issues of strategy and organisation process but also culture?\u00a0 For true consensus to emerge important issues need to be named and given sufficient air time on frequently packed agendas.\u00a0 In shaping the agenda and discussion it is important to recall previous discussions and reports \u2013 not just taking \u2018matters arising\u2019.\u00a0 Finding ways to remember previous promises made by the executive and have time to explore and question that productively and collaboratively.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 7) \u00a0 Given these challenges, there are often choices about how to arrange (or, frequently, rearrange) governing systems.\u00a0 In our experience, there tends to be an over focus on the structural options at the expense of the behavioural.\u00a0 For example, a committee structure is more likely to be reviewed than the sort of decision making and scrutiny discussions to achieve a real improvement.\u00a0 There is a sort of \u2018Inverse Attention Law\u2019: where the changes that are most needed are less likely to be considered. Using a biological metaphor, sometimes the \u2018Anatomy\u2019 (that is, the structure of a board or its sub groups) needs changing, but more often it is the \u2018Physiology\u2019 of how the existing parts work together that is crucial.\u00a0 Getting the governing groups ways of working right is often more necessary than the overall wiring.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 8) \u00a0 The role of the Chair is crucial. There are many high-powered Boards where strong personalities are quite deliberately given a platform to speak as separate voices.\u00a0 It is possible for the management team to take away different opinions on direction or performance. It is easy for chairs to either let all the voices speak (wishing to be seen as inclusive) or become too dictatorial.\u00a0\u00a0 Pulling together a wider ranging debate into a clear corporate line can be difficult to achieve.\u00a0 This summing up is sometimes avoided to allow personal agendas to be pursued through the \u2018smoke and mirrors\u2019 after a meeting.\u00a0 Chairs are often chosen for their sector knowledge.\u00a0 However, the key role is to manage a good discussion and lead the development of a strong team (where you can disagree well en route to agreeing a collective line that all are publicly committed to, and where the group holds each other to using the best possible behaviours).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 9) \u00a0 It is possible to invest too much power in the board, council or steering committee.\u00a0 Sometimes board members are very high powered and sit on lots of governing groups, possibly collecting too many appointments and not having sufficient time to give to their role.\u00a0 So it can be useful to find other ways to improve the advisory architecture so that checks and balances are in place.\u00a0 Setting up working groups and advisory groups can be used to show organisations are engaging more widely \u2013 but they can run into the many dozen, leading to a lack of consensus or good ideas get lost.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 10) \u00a0 Given all this, what is a useful way forward?\u00a0 Well quite simply, take time to review how you are doing.\u00a0 Be prepared to question the \u201cInverse Attention Law\u201d: the structure might need rejigging and processes rewiring.\u00a0 However, it is likely that securing the best\u00a0behaviours will be a\u00a0key task: achieving the physiology rather than the anatomy.\u00a0 Do you meet well?\u00a0 Do you have good conversations?\u00a0 It might seem a bit prosaic, but reviewing how your meetings go can be a good place to start, using something like this assessment<\/a> – which can be presented in a variety of ways including as a wheel, and can be tracked over time.\u00a0 It is a simple first step: governing made easy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So \u201cJust Governance\u201d?\u00a0 It is not necessarily simple and straightforward.\u00a0 And yet it needs to be thought through and fair.\u00a0 It can then provide amazing value added oversight with a light touch.\u00a0 Helping the right things to happen, and helping avoid things going wrong.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My colleague David Dowe and I were chatting recently.\u00a0 We got onto thinking about what it takes for an enterprise to be \u2018governed\u2019 well and to avoid governing systems going wrong (or at least not work well enough). 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