Whatever is not fixed by Corporate Governance is abused by Common
Practice! Corporate Governance refers to the structure and Management framework
that provides the strategic direction and vision for a group of people.
It is the job of Corporate Governance to ensure that everything
aligns with the Corporate Vision and Direction of the organization. It is the
job of Corporate Governance to define common practice which will then become
the Organizational Culture.
When Corporate Governance leaves some things out, those things are
at the mercy of common practice and common Practice always tends to the
negative!
Common
Practice refers to the “everyone-is- doing-it-like-that” syndrome. After some
time, Common practice becomes Organizational Culture. Common practice comes
from what you see and what you hear.
This is
the wrong way:
If you were a new employee of an organization and you saw everyone
putting on Jeans from Monday to Friday, what will you do? It is only a matter
of time; you will leave your suits at home and do same!
One of the common ways we see the operation of Corporate Governance
is by Dress Codes. Corporate Governance says to staff “All those Jeans, bikini,
Spaghetti you used to wear in your University days should be left at home; here
is how you should dress here”.
This is exactly how we should act especially when it comes to
Critical to Quality issues, one of which is corporate language.
One of the components of Quality or Six sigma is Management
Responsibility.
It is the duty of Management to define how, what and in what
measure things are to be done in a corporate environment in line with Corporate
Identity.
This is the right way:
When Corporate Identity and Corporate Vision are defined,
everything else should fall in line with this vision and identity.
Corporate Governance defines a Corporate Identity; Corporate
Identity should determine Common practice and common practice becomes
Organizational Culture with time.
It becomes “That is how we do it here”.
Nothing critical to quality should be determined by common
practice.
Professional Language-use is critical to quality.