Yesterday, I gave our regular workshop session to a new client.

It’s the session that we present to members of staff within the organisation, in order to prepare them for completing the GOVindicia® survey.

I started with my normal question,

“What is governance to you?”

I got a lot of the usual responses, legislation, regulation, rules, requirements, codes... I think you get the point.


And then came something that surprised me, although perhaps it shouldn’t have,

“Governance is boring.”

I took a sharp intake of breath although it wouldn’t of been noticed, and considered carefully how to respond.

I searched Google, and found what I was looking for; and put it up on the screen. It was a video of starlings in murmuration.

I asked the group,

“What do you see?”

Cohesion
Collaboration
Flexibility
Agility
Teamwork
Trust

I asked,

“What if your organisation was able to look and perform like a murmuration of starlings?”

The same person who had previously described governance as being ‘boring’ proudly stated,

“That would be beautiful.”