This blog post is prompted by Mental Health Awareness week, as you would expect. Early disclaimer: I believe strongly that promoting good mental health is a priority for all organisations, but I am no mental health expert. I would welcome comments from people with more expertise that would help improve my understanding. From the stance of my own experience, though, here a few reflections
When we set out to develop corporate strategy for promoting good mental health is governance at the front of our minds? Probably not. We can put in place good initiatives that raise awareness, roll out training and provide support. Taking these steps is really positive and will make a difference. There has been good progress in recent years on resources for organisations, leaders and individuals to draw on. The Forward Institute recently published Helping you Thrive: Leading through Covid-19 which has helpful, practical tips for leaders coping with the current crisis and looking beyond. I strongly recommend it to everyone looking after themselves and their teams right now.
We can raise awareness and take actions across organisations without having to do more than use already established governance processes – thinking through the business case and perhaps putting in place a project or programme structure to focus on delivering benefits. The case for going further depends on whether we are committed to lasting change.
Why think about governance in Mental Health Awareness week?
I think this wording from ICSA, the Chartered Governance Institute, makes pretty clear why we will limit our progress if we don’t think through where mental health sits as a priority within overall governance.
‘Corporate Governance … identifies who has power and accountability, and who makes decisions. … [It] ensures that businesses have appropriate decision-making processes and controls in place so that the interests of all stakeholders (shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers and the community) are balanced.’
ICSA, What is corporate governance?
This is written from a private sector perspective, but the point is equally true in the public sector. If promoting good mental health is a priority for your organisation, it needs to be a factor taken properly into account in business decisions. Every decision-taker must expect that this will be one of the factors on which they will be held accountable for the decisions they take. Positive mental health for the people involved should be a recognised factor in balancing the interests of key stakeholder groups, to use the ICSA language.
If this does not happen then progress will depend on the judgement of individual decision-takers. A smaller organisation with a few senior people who are very committed to promoting good mental health could do well without putting anything formal into place – at least for as long as those people stay in post. In larger organisations there will be inconsistencies if promoting good mental health is not built into the core rules and processes in the organisation, on things like working hours, performance management, physical environment and customer service.
Is reviewing corporate governance the magic bullet?
Changes to governance alone are certainly not going to transform our approach to mental health. The actions we take to raise awareness, offer training and provide resources are going to have a more immediate impact and will start to shift the culture of the organisation. If we don’t think through what changes may be needed to core governance, though, action on mental health remains an ‘add on’ to core business. Progress can easily erode over time as focus shifts to other important issues. I would argue that, tedious as it may seem, the investment of time to work through our rules and procedures, to adjust them where necessary and to be explicit about positive mental health as a priority in all the relevant places will help make change permanent within the organisation.
Changes to governance rules and procedures are also a strong signal of sustained commitment from those in overall charge of the organisation. Balancing promotion of good mental health with other priorities is not likely to be straightforward, and there may be disagreements – but working through those is another part of the journey. I might even say that working through them at our boards with kindness would be the strongest signal we can send that we are serious about mental health.
