Better Governance: 4 Reasons You Need A Court Jester

The G in ESG is in short supply. Machiavelli identified three types of good governance: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. He knew that if leaders don’t look for honest feedback these methods degenerate respectively into tyranny, oligarchy, and chaos.

In Machiavelli’s day honest feedback came from the court jester. An officially granted “jester’s privilege” allowed this person to speak freely without being punished. Besides telling good jokes, jesters asked questions and gave the “happy unhappy answers”* leaders needed to hear. That same idea works today.

Here’s what a good jester can do:

1.?????Humanize you. By making the occasional intelligent joke at your expense and tossing questions at you in front of the crowd, this ally spotlights your humility and vulnerability. This opens the door for people to speak up, advocate for constructive dissent, and ultimately help you fix things you may not know are broken.

2.?????Get you to do your homework. Usually this happens when they ask, “Do you know what’s going on….?” If you think you do, a good jester follows up with “How?” The numbers from the reports (that you probably designed or inherited) can’t tell you everything. Your jester will make you dig deeper.

3.?????Enlighten you. You know the truth? Guess what – your truth is only a perspective, and there are different ones out there. Jesters shed light on concerns and ideas that you’re missing.

4.?????Give you air cover. As a leader, particularly when you’re focused on a mission, you need someone covering your back and sides. A jester watches your blind spots, identifies wrong turns, and warns you about potholes ahead.

What does a jester look like? Most don’t wear caps with bells and brightly colored tights anymore.

Yours could be your assistant, a trusted staff member, or an outside player like a consultant or an executive coach who fully understands your organization.

Or, it could be the influence of a network developed within a culture of open communication, one that values understanding the full story. Do you have one of those?

Good governance doesn’t just happen because we’re good people. It’s the product of open minds, good questions, and due consideration of the “happy unhappy answers.”

*The idea of ‘happy unhappy answers’ comes from Thomas Fuller’s 1662 potboiler History of the Worthies of England. He used it to describe the work of Richard Tarlton, one of Elizabeth I’s jesters.?