A strong piece on officer liability. Although I do wonder how much safer organisations actually become when accountability is framed mainly as personal punishment. Most disasters I see grow out of system drift, production pressure, and weak signals being ignored, rather than directors choosing to break the law. How do we design governance and due diligence so that leaders can identify risk early, rather than only finding out when a prosecutor knocks?
Thank you Garry. One of the deeper issue is timing.
Governance often recognises risk only once it’s formal, documented, and undeniable. By then, the system has already adapted around the hazard. Liability enters the picture after sense-making has failed.
The leverage point is earlier: how organisations detect subtle deviation, how uncertainty is discussed without needing proof, and whether leaders are exposed to ambiguity rather than certainty. Systems that reward tidy narratives will always miss emerging risk. Systems that tolerate incomplete signals are more likely to intervene early.
Accountability should sharpen attention upstream, not just punish outcomes downstream. When governance is designed to notice drift while it’s still uncomfortable and contestable, enforcement becomes a backstop rather than the trigger.
A strong piece on officer liability. Although I do wonder how much safer organisations actually become when accountability is framed mainly as personal punishment. Most disasters I see grow out of system drift, production pressure, and weak signals being ignored, rather than directors choosing to break the law. How do we design governance and due diligence so that leaders can identify risk early, rather than only finding out when a prosecutor knocks?
Thank you Garry. One of the deeper issue is timing.
Governance often recognises risk only once it’s formal, documented, and undeniable. By then, the system has already adapted around the hazard. Liability enters the picture after sense-making has failed.
The leverage point is earlier: how organisations detect subtle deviation, how uncertainty is discussed without needing proof, and whether leaders are exposed to ambiguity rather than certainty. Systems that reward tidy narratives will always miss emerging risk. Systems that tolerate incomplete signals are more likely to intervene early.
Accountability should sharpen attention upstream, not just punish outcomes downstream. When governance is designed to notice drift while it’s still uncomfortable and contestable, enforcement becomes a backstop rather than the trigger.