08 Jul “I am one hundred percent faithful” – what can the traitors teach us about the importance of good governance? Or may be just “governance?”
Love it or hate it, the hit TV show “The Traitors” gets the nation thinking and talking.
Not just about Claudia’s fringe and wardrobe, but why (as she often dryly observes), are the faithful so rubbish at identifying and eliminating traitors?
I appreciate that the link with FCA governance here is probably far from obvious. Please stick with me for a moment or two and allow me to explain my thoughts.
Let us think, for a moment, about what the faithful are asked to do, and the circumstances they are asked to do it in. On the face of it we might think, “wow, they are on an amazing all expenses paid trip to a Scottish castle, what’s the problem”?
From a different perspective, they are thrown into a competitive situation in an unfamiliar environment, with a bunch of people they do not know (except for some of the celebrities) and asked to solve a puzzle with very little information to go on.
So, why is this task so difficult? In my view, this is because they are largely working in a vacuum. In most aspects of our life there are rules and structures we work within. We must be at work at certain times and fulfil the terms of our employment contract, drive in accordance with various laws, and pay our mortgages on time.
All this provides structure, or governance, to various parts of our lives. And how do we manage all this? We get information (or data) from many sources to help us understand how to best navigate our lives.
In The Traitors, most of this is taken away, and the Faithful must develop their own governance in the form of alliances that can be rapidly created and discarded whilst trying to find information on who the traitors are. It is this combination of a lack of governance structures and data that leads to them struggling to identify and eliminate those murderous traitors.
This is why FCA places such importance on governance and the data to support it. So, what does this mean in our day-to-day running of our businesses? Essentially, they expect you to have in place systems e.g., regular documented senior management meetings and controls e.g., a monitoring programme to provide you with data that are “appropriate to the nature, scale and complexity of your business.”
If all that leaves you concerned about identifying the traitors in your business life, please do get in touch.
We assure you; we are 100% faithful in our support.
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