Oxymorons in Abundance

No Governance in Data Governance.
No Intelligence in Business Intelligence.
No Leadership in Corporate Leadership.

Let me hasten to say that these are not intended to be value judgements. To be fair and truthful (which are tough sells) I should modify these statement a bit.

There is little governance in data governance, little intelligence in business intelligence and little leadership in corporate leadership. The question to be asked is not "why" but "how". Whenever we are faced with something unexpected, we are used to responding, "Why?" I've learned that why? almost always puts people on the defensive and that communication effectively shuts down when people become defensive.

If we change our question to how? we can focus on processes and look for cause rather than fault. So, how does it come about that data governance so often lacks any vestiges of governance?

The first task is to differentiate between leadership, management and governance. This isn't about people--an individual may be capable of doing all three--but it is about tendencies. Here's a breakdown that might help this to make sense.

• Leadership is about change.
• Management is about effectiveness and efficiency.
• Governance is about consistency and stability.

My take, after watching these processes work for many years, is that we find it nearly impossible to keep these three functions separated. When we are doing management while talking about leadership or doing leadership when we are talking governance, we not only confuse ourselves but also the community we are working within.

For example, we make a leadership decision to create data governance. Then we turn the task over to managers. In reality, leadership is required all the way out to the line organizations. Managers cannot make effective or efficient something that they do not understand and have not bought into. A too-early transition from leadership to management will give birth to confusion, frustration, burn out and the failure of the initiative before it even gets to the governance phase.

Continued tomorrow.