Oxymorons in Abundance (part 3)

Yesterday I stated that governance already exists and we ignore it to the detriment of all. A bit more discussion on this will be helpful.

Back to the frontier first. A settler had the problem of governing the household. There isn't much that need be said about that since we still deal with that issue today and probably in much the same ways. When a settler (at the boundaries of the empire) encountered others like him/her, they had to come up with ways to govern those relationships. I'm not going to go into those mechanisms here--cultural anthropologists have published a lot of theory and case studies about this process. I will say that whatever was negotiated fell into one of two broad categories:

1. One party was clearly dominant and dictated the terms


2. The parties created a contract that was seen as mutually beneficial.

Even in the cases of mutually beneficial agreements, there is often a competitive aspect. One of the parties will think, "Well, I had to agree to this but I'm going to stick to the letter of the agreement and if they think I'm going to go out of my way to make their lives easier, they'd better think again."

Fast forward to our modern equivalent. It's easy to see that, at the boundaries of our corporate empire, where the other party is the source of revenue (client or customer) this is counter-productive and a sure path to failure. It isn't quite as easy to see that the same holds true at organizational boundaries and, most importantly, process boundaries. Because of the way businesses operate culturally, each employee is competing with every other employee in the same way that settlers at the frontier were often forced to compete with each other.

The result (Dr. W. Edwards Deming exposed this very effectively) is sub-optimal performance for the process, organization and empire. We can hear this any time we choose to listen. "I know that data is incomplete, but I don't have time. They're the ones who need it--let them clean it up." "Yes, it's wrong but it's what they asked for. They're the ones who will have to do it over."

So here is the role of a governance program. Governance exists, but its goals are not those of the process, organization, empire. In order to replace naturally occurring, organic governance with governance that is aligned with the corporate vision and carefully designed to further the strategies and goals of that vision, the organic governance structures, including the attitudes that created them, must be identified and understood. Then they must be replaced with equally effective structures.

Are you familiar with the idea of a cow path? This picture shows cow paths--no, not the broad "road" that the cows are on--the cow paths are those faint lines that meander across the fall line of the hill. Why are there so many? The cows have their reasons but they aren't talking. Those paths are like the organic governance in your organization. You've heard the expression paving the cow paths, which is not considered a good thing to do.

I'll leave you with a final thought. Is redesigning the cow paths a productive effort? The answer is that it may be and it depends on the objectives, BUT if there is no way to train the cows to use the new 21st century solution, then even the best vision, strategy and goals will be for nought.