The world today, and our need to Transform

In these unprecedented times of crisis, be it dealing with the Global COVID-19 Pandemic, being stuck at home with full time work and online schooling, feeling pain witnessing the news, destruction, disasters or the demonstrations and protests in all of our cities; there is more reason to talk openly about vulnerability, fears, insecurities, past mistakes, pitfalls, validated learnings, opportunities and hope. And maybe even reforms.

Richard Bach — 'We teach best what we most need to learn.'

There's a larger transformation brewing. Can you sense it? It is coming. It is demanding change. Change in the way we have always done things. Challenging the status quo. Uprooting our preconceived notions. Shattering the beliefs of our systems. Speaking the truth. Being fearless. Making us question... What will I do about it? How can I help? Why are we doing this?

Forcing us to do the uncomfortable: a) recognize and acknowledge the problem; and b) step out of our unconscious bias and c) take action. It requires empathy. And more so, it requires self-empathy. We cannot offer to others what we do not have for ourselves. 

My journey in Data Governance has not always been rosy. It is populated with moments of defeat, hurt, pain, loss and pessimism. It can be very hard. It can be very lonely. Taking on Data Governance is like tackling entire belief systems of an organization and turning them on their side. It requires energy. It requires strength.

My complaints about launching a Data Governance initiative range from how the initiative is measured to what the definitions of success truly mean?

-      Why is my accomplishment of rolling out Data Governance dependent on how well other people "adopt" what I roll out?

-      My progress is dependent on someone else's behavior. And not just that. My success is dependent on someone else NOT falling back to their old behaviors.

-      No matter how well-intentioned our efforts may be, no one likes to be policed or governed. There’s a lot of negative connotation to what we are asked to do. It’s as if we don’t trust our own people. And with all this talk about reforms; perhaps we would like to evaluate our Governance model and consider some reforms?

-      How am I even equipped to be doing this kind of transformative work?

-      There’s too many competing priorities, and more important tasks at hand for our audiences: mainly: running the business; which always takes precedence over any due diligence, documentation or governance work.

Talk about transformation. It is hard. But what is the one thing even harder than Transformation? It’s making that change stick.

Speak up about your challenges. Speak up about your failures. We are all in this together. And we all learn from each other.