Governance

As I have mentioned I work in governance in healthcare. This is a real challenge, but very worthwhile work (most of the time).
 

Governance is critically important to leadership and is hugely difficult to get right. All of the scandals we have seen like Mid Staffordshire Hospital (where, put simply, a lot of patients died unnecessarily because the hospital was poorly run and the leadership refused to acknowledge concerns) can be explained in terms of bad governance.

 

How good governance can be applied is poorly understood. Governance is not a tool in an arsenal of weapons that you can apply to this situation or that; and it is not a stage in a process. It is in many ways more a state of mind - it should pervade the culture of an organisation and inform any activity or decision.

 

I'll bet your bosses are very careful to keep good records or make a note of something when things look a bit dodgy, or they apply very high standards of behaviour when things have gone wrong and a situation needs rescuing. I'll also bet conversely when things are going well, or seem to be going well, they are very lackadaisical and almost laissez-faire in their approach.

 

That’s not really good governance; they should be consistent behaving in a way that means things are less likely to go wrong, and if they do very little special effort needs to be made to put things right. Part of this helping people take responsibility and crucially are empowered to take actions. Too many projects, especially in the public sector, devolve into politicking where so long as no-one can be blamed, and no-one's sense of entitlement is offended, it will be OK.

 

That's tough to deliver, especially from the ground up. I strongly insist with my employers that my role is NOT to do bits of other people's jobs they don't want to do; or to charge in to rescue people when things go wrong.

 

That isn't enough of course. There is still that traditional approach of governance being a basket of unloved virtue and you are expected to be the keeper of those virtues in order to let people get on with important stuff; and you get let out of your box when they need you - particularly when things get difficult. That's especially important because of that sense of entitlement.

 

Let me illustrate:

 

Project Manager: "I need access to patient data to do finish this well-advanced project"

Governance lead: "Sorry, but without a clear legal basis for having it I can't give it to you"
Project Manager: "But without it my project will fail"
Governance lead: "I can help you work out what you need and the best legal route for getting enough information to help you deliver your project even if the scope needs to change a bit"
Project Manager: "Oh that would be great, thanks"
 

All reasonable. Except the two parties now have two different understandings. The Governance Lead thinks the Project Manager will work within a system of information governance to manage his project properly. The Project Manager thinks the Governance Lead will make it OK to have what he wants. Uh oh.

 

What should have happened is the Project Manager should have talked to the Governance Lead when he was starting his project. It’s the job of the Governance Lead to make that happen – automatically if possible – but ideally without putting bureaucratic chains around getting things done. 
 

Tough job. I’ll let you know when I start getting it right!