- We need fewer meetings
- Let’s strip back governance
- It’s too bureaucratic
- Alignment is slowing everything down
Most transformation programmes aren't failing because the work is hard. They're failing because no one can make a decision. Too many forums, too many stakeholders, too much “alignment”. That's not complexity. It's poor governance.
A few years ago, I led a programme to close part of a retail business in another territory. It was one of the most complex pieces of work I've led, with multiple functions, significant scrutiny, tight timelines, colleagues affected and a long stretch under NDA where only a small group knew it was happening.
The biggest myth in change is that governance slows things down. My experience has been the opposite. Bad governance slows things down. Good governance speeds everything up.
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ClarityEveryone knows what must be delivered, by whom, by when.
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DecisionsIssues land in the right forum instead of bouncing around the system.
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MomentumProgress keeps moving because ownership is visible and escalation is deliberate.
I wasn't the expert in tax, property law, HR or PR, and that was exactly the point. The role wasn't to become the deepest specialist in every discipline. The role was to make sure the specialists could do their work within a structure that connected everything.
From the start, the focus was simple: put experts in charge of their domains, be crystal clear on what needed to be delivered and when, then build a governance model that joined the moving parts together.
Every team worked from its own Kanban-style system. This wasn't about micromanagement. It was about visibility. When the work is visible, progress becomes easier to understand, blockers appear earlier and status can be read without a chase.
- Everyone knew what mattered most
- Progress was transparent
- Dependencies surfaced before they became delays
- Updates came from the work itself, not from theatre
No chasing updates, no slide deck for the sake of it, just real work tracked clearly enough for people to act on it.
We didn't remove governance. We designed it properly. The model was simple, tiered and intentional. Each level had a clear purpose. Each level knew when it should decide, when it should coordinate and when it should escalate.
It stopped endless debate loops.
It reduced decision paralysis.
It kept the right people involved at the right point, not in every conversation.
Structure and governance gave us something critical: control of the narrative. The media didn't get hold of the story early. Colleagues heard directly from us at the right moment. When the news was announced externally, we were sharing the message rather than reacting to it.
That doesn't happen by accident. It happens when roles are clear, decisions are owned and communication is planned instead of scrambled.
Every two weeks, stakeholders received what they actually needed: progress, key decisions required, top risks and the mitigation plans in motion.
Not more meetings, better placement. When each forum has a purpose, cadence creates confidence instead of clutter.
No noise. No over-complication. Just enough information to keep the work moving and the decisions live.
Because the structure was designed intentionally, the programme delivered what it needed to deliver. Closures happened on schedule. Disruption was minimised. Colleagues were supported properly. Communication landed at the right time in the right way. External perception stayed strong.
More importantly, decisions happened quickly. The right people were involved at the right time. We avoided meetings for meetings’ sake because the model left less room for drift.
- We need another steering group.
- We should align offline first.
- Let’s bring everyone into the meeting.
- We need to socialise this a bit more.
- Is this governance helping decisions happen, or helping people avoid them?
- Are the right people in the room at the right time?
- Is the issue unclear, or is the structure unclear?
If you're in the middle of complex change and things feel slower than they should, it's often not a people problem. It's a structure problem. It's an operating model problem. We help teams design simple, effective operating models that enable decisions instead of slowing them down.