It is no secret that people are different. I love process and order. I pay attention to detail whereas; on the other hand my friend loves chaos and new things.

Then there are people who work diligently with numbers, projections and formulae.
Then there are people who enjoy creativity and exploring failure.
Then there are people who are methodical and process orientated.
And many more...perhaps more than we imagine.

For all of us, perhaps, there is a common element to being human. Something which we embrace to a greater or lesser extent - what Susan David Ph.D would describe as 'emotional agility'.

We often categorise individuals as 'people's people' – the ones who pay careful attention to others and their feelings. And it's true, these are simply skills that we all have in varying degrees. But, it is no secret that some people seem to be very competent and have big doses, while others are much smaller.

What we are learning from the data from emotional science, behavioural psychology and other research areas is that the effectiveness of teams and the effectiveness of our own selves, is hugely dependent on our emotional skill level.

So, what happens when governance and therefore groups of humans are out of balance? What if we have a group that is made up of ten people like my friend who loves new things and big visions with little to no attention to detail? Or, there are ten folks like me – loving processes and steps to implement, not a whole lot of new 'out of the box' thinking – but truly skilled in the art of process.

What we are beginning to see, in the data emerging from organisational culture, is that nurturing emotional and behavioural intelligence is one of the best methods towards creating agile teams.

Diversity is important, this is evident, and written into corporate governance frameworks and targets, but what's emerging is that developing emotional skills and intelligence actually supports creativity, adherence to compliance requirements and organisational culture in the long-term.

So, we might imagine that ten people on a team that are 'people people', will not be good at enforcing rules and standards, however the evidence suggests otherwise.

Simply; to promote and encourage good governance, we need to have a well balanced team that has the right amount of visionary ability plus people needed to validate those ideas against facts, figures and evidence. We also need those important people who can tell you how to craft that message and how to reach others, as well as those 'implementers', those who can frame the plan in all its glory!

For governance of organisations to be performance focused, we need to be careful not to have too many of the same type of people in the group – or where one ‘attribute’ exists in a dominate individual, which affects the entire team.

The governance colour palette should be equally balanced with different and wide ranging people considering carefully that required for different responsibilities.

An unbalanced organisation or one with low equanimity, can lead to things operating ineffectively or without purpose. Diversity accepts that we need people with different skills and experience, from different cultures and backgrounds...what they all need however, is high and developing levels of emotional agility and ethical intelligence.

We need to start by knowing where we are now and some reflection of looking at where our organisation has been, so that we can make those adjustments to take us where we want to go!

Happy Balancing!