Engaging Governance Folks.
Engage them by building credibility and asking for their input earlier.
Who’s the Governance Guider in your workplace?
A Governance Guider is intelligent, thoughtful and contemplative. Good at digesting complex information, they excel at translating it into their own context.
Where can you find a Governance Guider?
You’ll often find them in high-stakes roles, such as legal, finance, auditing, risk management and ministerial roles.
If you need to get an idea approved, engaging a Governance Guider is a must.
Communicating with a Governance Guider.
The Governance Guider thinks like this.
Their antenna is attuned to what could go wrong, rather than what could go right. Motivated by certainty and avoiding risks, they see many mistakes as avoidable simply by thinking an idea through carefully.
What a Governance Guider is wary of.
A Governance Guider is wary of shallow thinking. This is not the audience to ‘think out loud with’.
To capture the attention of a Governance Guider, share ideas you’ve considered, then ask for their advice.
They’re wired to tell you what could go wrong, before they’ll affirm what works.
Yet, they aren’t criticising you. They’re doing their job, which is to point out how in any way what you’re proposing could create a risk.
The mindset switch for working with Governance Guiders is this.
It’s their job to look out for anything that can make an organisation, or the people it serves, vulnerable.
Your job is to give them a concept you’ve considered (your strength) so they can find any risks (their strength).
If you can see their recommendations not as criticisms of you, but their way of strengthening your ideas, to make the organisation have less risk, you’ll be more inclined to engage them earlier.
Meaning, you’ll end up with much stronger recommendations.
Before you share an idea with a Governance Guider.
Ask yourself these questions:
What are limitations to my way of thinking?
In what context doesn’t this work?
Who would pushback, and what would their reasons be?
If you’ve given some thought to the above, you’ll be able to get the best from your Governance Guider.
They’ll take you seriously, with evidence you’ve done the pre-work. You’ll get their smarts and your ideas will end up stronger.
To get their buy-in and trust, you’ve got to do a bit of pre-work.
Admitting your ideas have limitations builds credibility with this sort of person. By thinking about limitations to your ideas upfront, you’ll get more of their time, attention and expertise.
Are you a Governance Guider?
I often hear from Governance Guiders that they wish they were engaged earlier instead of being asked to approve concepts that haven’t been considered deeply.
What’s with that?
Mainly it’s a case of unconscious incompetence.
Most non-governance folks are unaware of how much time is needed to action risk and compliance. See this as credit to you: they trust you look after ‘that stuff’.
This, coupled with a fear of wanting to avoid being criticised, means instead of engaging you earlier, they flick you an email, hoping you’ll reply with just one word: APPROVED.
It doesn’t really work though, does it?
You can’t magically make people understand what you do overnight.
But, you can build trust and cultivate a relationship where people want to come to you, and leave knowing a little more about what you need to say ‘yes’ to their requests.
If you want people to actually start actioning your recommendations, there are two things you can do:
Frame your recommendations from what’s not possible to what is.
Build a relationship that isn’t transactional to have more influence.
Here’s a short overview of each recommendation.
You rank high in sound judgement and expertise by nature.
Yet research tells us there’s an input before people can trust it.
For example, in a study of 87,000 leaders, it was found that people trusted leaders most when they had, in this order: a) a positive relationship b) evidence of sound judgement and expertise, c) consistency.
Your opportunity is to build a positive relationship with that person, by showing that you are sincerely interested in them being successful.
Frame your recommendations in what could be a yes, and observe how they react to you.
You’re not changing what you recommend. Just frame it in a different way. Instead of listing what isn’t possible first, educate them on what you need to say yes to their request.
Share limitations, just outline how it could be a yes within those limitations.
You’re not endorsing risky activity. You’re just educating them, about what would need to be present, for them to get what they want.
Examples:
‘For that to be possible, I’d just need a risk matrix drafted and sent through.’
‘To make that happen, the business would need $50m discretionary capital.’
‘That’s not possible, but what is possible is to look at it by Friday.’
Remember: you deal in facts. Others deal in feelings.
If you find yourself rolling your eyes, fair enough.
But consider this: 50% of this relationship going well is up to you.
Flipping the order of how you share your recommendations isn’t really up there with the hardest thing you’ll do at work, is it?
Make explicit that you do want their initiative to work. Frame your recommendations in what could be a yes, and observe how they react to you.
It’s a tiny shift that will get more non-governance folks paying more attention to you.
Recap: engaging a Governance Guider.
To gain credibility with a Governance Guider:
Stick to the facts when you communicate.
Engage them earlier.
Don’t share ideas until you’ve figured out the limitations.
If you’re a Governance Guider and you want to be engaged earlier:
Frame your recommendations on what is possible and how.
Build a relationship that’s beyond transactional to get more trust.
Did this make you want to help your Governance Guiders?
Our 90 minute workshop, Adapting Your Communication, is popular with Governance Guiders as it helps them understand what others need to engage them earlier.
Download an info pack on this workshop delivered to workplaces.
“I realise now it’s not a checklist but a ‘I’ll be more mindful and provide more facts to my detailed [peers]’.”