05 Aug Governing Agility: Can corporate structures dance?
Can governance and agility live happily ever after? We think so – but only if you choose your structures and populate them with care. As we prepare for our upcoming conversation café on Organisational Agility, we’re also preparing to speak at the 2025 HR Governance and Human Analytics Conference. That got us wondering about the relationship between ideas of corporate governance and organisational agility.
Governance is a serious thing. South African courts might expect organisations to follow the advice of the King Codes on corporate governance. It’s not law – but in the case of a failure of governance the courts can rely on these codes to set the standard. You may have noticed that the King V Codes of corporate governance have been released for public comment. King V is the latest in a series of codes first published by Dr Mervyn King in 1994. The version in use is King IV, updated in 2016. King V grapples with AI, ethics, and evolving stakeholder accountability. If you haven’t been following the release of King V, read Webber Wentzel’s update here.
In days gone by (2006 – one year before the first iPhone…), one of our team members authored a research report in which he compared the (then) seven principles of good corporate governance in King II to concepts of African traditional governance. After months in library dungeons, he emerged and declared that traditional African governance was a surprisingly good fit for the King II codes and believes that fit resonates today.
Corporate governance involves structures. You cannot be a good governor in a bad structure – and a good structure does not make good governors (but it helps). The King codes call for the establishment of an independent board (to separate oversight from execution) populated by diverse, skilled, and independent people. The roles of board, committees and the executive are to be clearly defined and separated. There need to be strong internal control and assurance structures, as well as accountability mechanisms. These might be said to be the scaffolding of good governance.
It might seem that these corporate governance structures are the best possible handbrakes and anchors on organisational agility. It might sound like strapping on a 75 kg backpack before a samba contest. You will ukuwa (fall) long before you samba.
This is not strictly true – as the King Codes themselves have worked hard to demonstrate. The structures are driven by principle (now 17 principles that map well into Agile principles and practices), and the structures can achieve their mandates without being a drag on execution. It all depends on application – and application depends on people. There you have it – you cannot be agile without agile structures, and you cannot govern well without governance structures. Agile organisations and good corporate governance can coexist in the right hands.
The freedom fighter and the bureaucrats
However – an agile governor in a bureaucratic governance structure will operate like a freedom fighter in hostile territory. Surrounded by bureaucrats, the agile governor will appear to be a rule-breaker and is likely to face sanction of some form or another. Was anyone else watching the brave pioneers of the banking innovation teams between 2005 and 2020? Those teams had low survival rates and those who did survive in the banking world were the best clandestine operatives.
And so, we come full circle to the simple adage that form follows function. A well performing, agile organisation will not sacrifice good governance. An organisation transitioning from bureaucratic, policy-driven machinery to fluid, principle-driven agility will suffer an identity crisis, and take on tremendous risk as the old centre of rules is replaced by a new centre of principles.
Chris Worley defines agility as “a built-in capacity (structure), and a learned capability (agency), to make timely and sufficient change, … such that performance stays high (bracketed text added).” This highlights agility as both structural and agentic, and so potentially enhanced by or on conflict with organisational governance.
In our August conversation café, Liezel van Arkel will explore Chris Worley’s evolving view of organisational agility – not as speed, and not as reactionary or episodic change. We will investigate ways of developing an organisations capacity for ongoing change. Most organisations today claim they want to be agile, but few understand what agility really demands—particularly in terms of leadership, structure, and culture. Click here to register and join us on 27 August at 09:00 (SAST) for 90 minutes of useful conversation.
Written by: Craig Yeatman