Governance that Works for You and Not Against You
- Laura Sawka
- Jan 15
- 4 min read
We’ve all experienced organizations where everything looks good on paper. Detailed security policies, board reporting, and issue tracking. But when you start asking questions, the reality is quite different from what’s on paper. Is this a growing pain from expanding too quickly? Is the organization changing, and security isn’t keeping up? Or is it a lack of tone from the top about the importance of having strong security and compliance practices? Whatever the reason, a new approach is necessary.
Trust but Verify
Trust is earned over time and can be easily broken. As GRC professionals, we know that trust doesn’t just have to be earned over time with customers and investors, but it also has to be verified. Verification is confirmation that an organization does what it says it does. This means validating that policies are implemented. That controls are enforced. And that controls have the necessary coverage.
Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) programs exist to deliver sustainable trust to stakeholders. So why then is governance often disconnected from the verification piece?
The Governance Gap
Organizations experience a governance gap when policies exist only on paper rather than being integrated into business processes. Policies are written to comply with external certification requirements and sometimes incorporate in internal requirements to manage risk as well. But that’s where the process rigor stops. The policy statements often aren’t: mapped to controls, monitored, or enforced. The verification component is missing.
I’ll ask you this - without verification, how do you know that policies are actually implemented and doing what they are supposed to?
Bridging the Governance Gap
To overcome the governance gap, an organization must tightly link intention to verification. To do this:
Ensure policies reflect both internal and external requirements - Policies are an organization’s statement of intent for protecting its data, systems, and people. They should not just reflect certification requirements, but also address internal security needs to manage risk. Effective policies blend requirements into clear expectations.
Align policy statements and controls - Map policies and policy statements to your controls. Identify if there are any policy statements without controls to enforce the policy statements. Similarly, identify if there are any controls that don’t clearly map to policy or standard statements. Align the policies and controls to ensure that the intention is actionable.
Integrate controls into business processes - Wherever possible, work with the business and technical teams to embed controls into processes. Automate controls so they are built and enforced in engineering processes supported by checks and guardrails in the CI/CD process. Technically enforced controls are much more likely to consistently operate and reduce variability in outcomes.
Monitor controls continuously - Continuously monitor the control environment to determine whether controls are operating effectively and quickly identify and resolve issues. Just like system owners monitor their systems for availability, it’s important for control owners to monitor systems against security and compliance requirements. Continuous monitoring provides the visibility needed to determine whether controls are operating and enables continuous improvement.
Monitor exceptions – Not every policy can always be met for technical, legal, or business reasons. A robust exception management process enables the organization to assess, review, and decide on risk acceptance for exceptions. Governance teams should monitor approved exceptions to see if certain policies frequently receive them. This may prompt a review of the policy to ensure it aligns with the business’s goals and risk appetite.
Establish an update process – Businesses move quickly, and the threat landscape evolves even faster. Ensure your organization reviews and updates policies and the associated controls at least annually, or when significant risks arise. Policies should reflect ongoing security needs, not collect dust.
The Benefits
Closing the governance gap takes time, resources, and effort. It’s not easy, but the payoff is worth it.
Innovation can Thrive
For teams innovating and building quickly, they don’t want to be bogged down trying to understand and interpret security and compliance requirements. Instead, they want to know that the tools and infrastructure they are using enforce security and compliance by default. They want to know that guardrails are built into the process so they can succeed. Teams can then focus their efforts on designing and building innovative products. So, as counterintuitive as it sounds, having clear requirements integrated into your business processes can actually enable innovation to go faster.
Continuous Risk Management
Continuously understanding and monitoring the state of an organization’s controls and policy compliance can enable it to move from static risk management to real-time insights driven by control effectiveness. Real-time visibility can inform where risks are being mitigated and whether issues are emerging. This can inform investment and resourcing decisions to ensure critical risks are being addressed.
Executive & Board Visibility
When policies are linked to controls and can be measured, policy compliance can be a powerful metric to share with executives and the Board. It provides insight into how aligned the organization is with the policy and how effectively it is being enforced. A policy compliance metric provides a great top-down view for the leadership team.
Conclusion
When businesses are moving fast, governance may not seem like a top priority. But a purpose-driven approach to governance is critical for aligning efforts, turning intentions into reality, and enabling the organization to confidently innovate and thrive.
In your organization, does governance hinder or help?
Schedule a consultation with our strategic advisor to see how a purpose-driven governance strategy can help you move forward with confidence.
