Part 3: When the Gods Are on the Steering Committee#
By this point in The Iliad, I had started getting reasonably comfortable with the project structure.
There are Greeks.
There are Trojans.
There are various kings, warriors, and other critical resources.
And above all of them are the gods.
Great.
Governance.
Except then I started paying attention to what the gods were actually doing.
And I have some concerns about the governance model.
Zeus has made a side agreement#
Back in Book 1, after Agamemnon takes Briseis and Achilles withdraws from the fighting, Achilles asks his mother, Thetis, to speak to Zeus.
Thetis does.
She asks Zeus to give the Trojans the advantage until the Greeks realise how much they need Achilles and restore his honour.
Zeus agrees.
He also knows Hera isn’t going to be happy about it.
So our ultimate authority over the project has now made a commitment to the mother of a critical resource, which will affect the direction of the entire war, while knowing that another member of governance has very different ideas about the desired outcome.
Excellent.
This project continues to go extremely well.
But Zeus isn’t the only complication.
The gods aren’t sitting somewhere above the war, impartially observing what happens below them.
They have favourites.
They have relationships.
They have history.
They have grudges.
And, most importantly, they have their own objectives.
Different gods support different sides and different people.
And they don’t restrict themselves to providing strategic oversight.
They intervene directly in delivery.
Which raises a fairly significant governance question.
What does authority actually mean when the people inside the governance structure have competing interests of their own?
Zeus is still in charge#
The strange thing is that Zeus’s authority is real.
When Zeus decides the gods are not to interfere in the fighting, he can establish that rule.
And for a while, it works.
Mostly.
Until the gods watching events unfold become unhappy enough with the consequences that they start considering intervention again.
Hera and Athena, in particular, are not delighted with how things are progressing.
They prepare to intervene.
Zeus notices.
They are stopped.
And Olympus requires what I have decided to classify as another progress and disciplinary meeting.
This seems to happen quite a lot.
Zeus makes a decision.
The gods follow it.
Someone becomes unhappy with the consequences.
Someone starts interfering.
Zeus discovers the interference.
Everybody returns to Olympus for another conversation about what we’re all supposed to be doing.
Apparently, one of Zeus’s recurring responsibilities is governing the governance.
This looks nothing like modern governance#
On the surface, obviously, it doesn’t.
Most steering committees I’ve encountered contain considerably fewer immortal beings personally entering the battlefield.
We would also probably have some questions about conflicts of interest if members of the same governance body were actively supporting two organisations trying to destroy each other.
Modern governance generally tries to avoid that.
But once I stopped looking at the gods and started looking at the structure underneath them, something became surprisingly familiar.
Because modern governance doesn’t make competing priorities disappear either.
Putting decision-makers around a table doesn’t mean everyone suddenly wants exactly the same thing.
The different priorities come into the room with them.
And that’s not necessarily a problem.
In many cases, that’s exactly why those people are there.
Different priorities are part of the point#
A technical lead might be focused on feasibility and technical risk.
Finance might be focused on cost.
Operations might be thinking about what can actually be supported once the project is delivered.
Someone representing the customer or the business might be focused on whether the thing we’re building actually solves the problem it was supposed to solve.
They can all be looking at exactly the same project and legitimately care about different things.
Different responsibilities.
Different risks.
Different priorities.
Different values.
Different opinions about what matters most.
The governance mechanism exists partly so those competing considerations can be made visible and a decision can be reached.
That doesn’t mean everybody splits the difference.
Sometimes one priority legitimately wins.
Sometimes there’s a compromise.
Sometimes somebody produces another option.
Sometimes the committee decides:
We understand the risk. We’re accepting it because another objective matters more.
The point isn’t that everybody walks out wanting exactly the same thing.
The point is that there is a mechanism for reaching a decision and clarity about who has the authority to make it.
Which brings me, back to Zeus.
Someone still has to decide#
Olympus has competing priorities in abundance.
The difference is that the gods aren’t simply bringing different professional perspectives to the same project objective.
They’re supporting different sides of the war.
Which does make the governance model somewhat harder to recommend.
But when Zeus makes a decision and chooses to enforce it, there is an ultimate decision-maker.
That doesn’t make Hera agree with him.
It doesn’t remove Athena’s interests.
It doesn’t stop the other gods having favourites, relationships, grievances, or opinions.
It establishes what happens next.
At least until the next intervention.
And the next escalation.
And presumably another meeting.
Governance is still part of the system#
At first, the governance of the Trojan War looked completely alien.
Gods supporting opposing armies.
Personal grudges.
Family relationships.
Side agreements.
Direct intervention in delivery.
The occasional disciplinary meeting on Olympus.
And yes, I think we’d identify a few conflicts of interest.
But underneath all of that, something much more familiar is happening.
Governance doesn’t sit outside the system. It’s part of the system.
The people making decisions bring their own expertise, responsibilities, priorities, relationships, and opinions with them.
Different priorities inside governance aren’t necessarily a problem.
Sometimes that’s exactly why those people are there.
The challenge is having a way to make those competing considerations visible, reach a decision, and establish who has the authority to decide what happens next.
In The Iliad, ultimately, that’s Zeus.
Which means that alongside thunderbolts, fate, family disputes, and managing an unusually interventionist group of gods, Zeus appears to have acquired another recurring responsibility:
Governing the governance.
Welcome to the steering committee.
Originally published on LinkedIn.