Governance, roles, and incremental action
The Fracture Between the Technical and the Living
The Purpose of Governance Models
Pre-existing governance models are a kind of template. When an organization lacks its own model or is undergoing an evolutionary leap, these “templates” allow the adoption of a set of rules and practices that, over time, instill different habits.
There are no inherently bad or good models. Rather, a model, or a part of it, is either functional or not to the company’s evolution.
When a model “fails,” it does not truly fail in itself. What happens is that the implementation strategy requires revision, and the “manual” that comes with the model is not always the right fit for the organization.
Blaming a static tool is a way of avoiding responsibility, because it is the human being in their relationship with the tool who determines whether it works or not, by adopting it, modifying it, or evolving it.
Broadly speaking, when a “model fails,” it is because the search for its adaptation to the company’s reality has been abandoned. A limit has been reached that requires a higher level of creativity than the previous version.
That said, a governance model initially shares the same technical components. However, the social response to it varies as much as the number of companies that exist.
Separation of Model and System
The model is a guide for adopting practices where, through people’s actions, a system is gradually generated around it.
This separation is key: on one side we have the template, which is its technical dimension. On the other, the social dimension, the people who will put it into action. In between the two, the system emerges, allowing the model and the social movement of people to function in balance. The system is born in the equilibrium between the technical and the social.
It is important to separate these two layers, because traditionally people speak of the adoption or adaptation of people to the technical model. In other words, a mechanical aspect predominates: pushing people toward the technical dimension of the model. This takes the technical dimension to an absolute extreme at the expense of the social, and this is also where “resistance” originates.
When taken to this extreme, it can be perceived more as indoctrination than as a social evolution aimed at advancing the company. Likewise, the social extreme suggests that any person can use whichever model they prefer, which also generates deep social conflicts by creating subcultures within the same organization.
The governance model is always a strategic decision. It generates a system that constantly allows the discovery of what is functional and the discarding of what is not for the company’s evolution.
The Roles Within the Model
Broadly speaking, every model comes with roles. The roles it includes are functional within the parameters of the model itself. Any attempt to build a hybrid without first experiencing the model in its original or “pure” version will, sooner or later, result in blaming the model.
If we say that a model is (or should be) functional to the company’s evolution, it must be given the opportunity to be experienced, even if only in a team temporarily isolated from the existing culture, and with all its rules. Otherwise, the probability of social conflict due to mixing styles is far too high.
The components of a model, in their essence, propose change, and its roles are one of the strongest levers for that change to occur.
This is validated through observation. Any tool, dynamic, meeting, or cycle proposed by the model can support and pressure change. But if the role proposed by the model is not taken seriously, the social behavior will remain the same despite new cultural components.
The model can force a different system, but if the role still retains its previous essence, regression is always imminent.
A position in a pyramidal or traditional structure responds to the individual’s own specialty and the responsibility attached to that position. It also establishes movement upward and downward. Generally, upward represents responsibility for the structure that depends on it.
Other directions are not contemplated. Unfortunately, this is not science fiction, you only need to listen to how people talk each other and act in organizations:
“This is not my responsibility” or “This is not my job,”,
“I can’t talk to X unless Y speaks to Z first.”
Or project status meetings where it seems the project belongs not to the organization but to a specific position or area, almost like a sub-company within the company.
If the model proposes a different movement of roles but an attempt is made to fit it into the same traditional structure, other questions and needs begin to emerge: “What about the people?”, “We need integration,” “We need alignment.”
Another example is models that incorporate “open door” policies or collaboration merely by indicating a behavior. It can work, but the pressure exerted by a position within a pyramidal structure will often generate silent social conflicts.
In other words, if the structure is pyramidal and a team member speaks freely with a director thanks to an “open door” policy, the only thing gained will be hidden enemies along the way. And because we are human, we will consciously or unconsciously hinder the fluidity of the organization.
When only the social dynamic is changed without touching the technical side, the latter exerts the necessary pressure to maintain its hegemony.
Another perspective is that in the traditional position, movement is downward or upward. The horizontal and the perpendicular are implicitly delegated to the person with “social skills” or someone very sociable who can relate well to others.
Social skills are a fact; however, when the structure is pyramidal, what that person does is naturally resolve the organizational impediment of jumping over fences between positions.
Self-deception is the pattern of creating narratives in which we believe it depends on the individual’s skill, when the system is designed to develop secondary dynamics that have nothing to do with the company’s progress.
What I want to highlight here is that there are additional dynamics triggered internally by the structure, dynamics that are sustained and that would not really be necessary.
A more powerful final example: politics in business is necessary, but when all members practice it at every level of the organization, it speaks directly to what is happening in the culture.
If a team member or leader has to calibrate how to organize with others or how the other party might take it, depending on the day and the person’s mood, this goes beyond mere social skills.