We have been evolving our understanding of governance as this collective project has progressed, and we continue to approach governance as a live term and exploration.

• Governance encompasses all the things that are put in place for people to work together.
• Governance is a core process, that allows other processes to work.
• It is often thought of just as what happens in board meetings, but it goes far beyond that to include the formal and informal structures, policies, practices, relationships and cultural expectations that determine how decisions are made, roles and resources are allocated and collaborative activity happens.
• The #BeyondTheRules project suggests that the following factors play a key role in systems of governance: accountability, responsibility, risk-holding, power and autonomy and that “looking at how these factors are balanced and distributed across a system can help to reveal how (in)justly and/or (in)effectively governance might play out in a system”.
• Governance is not a neutral term - the word brings with it the colonial, patriarchal, white supremacist context that we are working to transform. Read more on this background in our Theory of Change.

What does Transformational Governance mean to us?

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We use the term Transformational Governance to describe governance that is explicitly designed to disrupt the way power operates in our dominant system, support healthy collaboration across difference and bring about just and resilient outcomes.

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Transformational governance...

• Supports people to tune into, and be guided by, the purpose of their collective endeavour rather than by their ego or defences, bringing their whole selves into the process.
• Ensures power is visible, distributed and flows around the system to energise and unlock what is needed for the collective endeavour to move forward.
• Is based on a sense and adjust approach, rather than predict and control, and so enables groups to collaborate creatively and effectively in complex and fast-changing environments.
• Finds ways for all relevant perspectives and experience to be present and taken into account when key decisions are made and activities co-designed, so that the group benefits from the wisdom of collective intelligence.
• Helps people notice and reflect on their own roles, attitudes, behaviours and world views, so they better understand how they can contribute to the collective endeavour and are more receptive to the contributions of others.
• Builds in feedback loops and prioritises time and space for reflection, supporting the system and the people within it to constantly learn and adjust.
• Is rooted in balance and flow, valuing being and relationships as much as what gets done.