Under Control: Governance Across the Enterprise

2.3. Governance in the Real World

In this chapter, you have seen how governance should work. We've identified the key goals of governance and looked at some of the activities that go into making a robust governance strategy.

So, how well does governance work in the real world? Judging by the circumstances of the 2008–2009 financial crisis . . . often not too well! Many analysts and pundits have published their views on how we got into this unpleasant situation, and I'm sure there will be many more to come. As of this writing, we don't know how long it will take for the economy to recover fully from this mess, and we certainly don't know yet what form of regulation will be introduced to attempt to avoid situations like this going forward. But ...