True governance is beautiful
Perrin Carey
5 May 2020 at 12:00:00
Nature often provides us with insight and clarity where humans struggle.
Nature often provides us with insight and clarity where humans struggle. Starlings are brilliant at murmuration, a collective symphony of leadership.
True and perfect governance is a thing of beauty.
Too often, when I have asked others what they perceive governance to be, I have been met with responses around ‘rules' and ‘codes' or intangible things such as ‘integrity' and ‘transparency’.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with these, but it’s very difficult for us, as humans, to relate to them.
Nature understands governance.
Starlings understand governance. I imagine it to look like murmuration. The fantastic spectacle, which makes us in awe of the fluidity, adaptability, creativity and congruence of flight flocks.
Governance comes from the Latin ‘gubernare' to steer.
We often see governance as simply direction from the top. We perceive it as 'being governed'. The reality is that governance is about how well the organisation, as a whole, works together and this in line with the direction of the organisation's aims, values and strategy.
Governance is not something done to us, it is something we do together. Steering as one, not just by leadership.