Good Faith Effort is Good for Business
Wouldn’t it be great if business execs pushed records management as good for business, instead of the more typical ‘bitter pill’ reaction? You know the reaction. “Legal says we have to do this, so OK, but please don’t let it distract us from doing our real business work.”
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? And we’ve experienced how hard to sustain RM focus and resources when business buy-in is reluctant at best.
So how do we help management see records management as ‘good for business’? Interestingly, the key is in understanding the power of good faith effort.
Good faith effort is a common concept in the law. My non-lawyerly take is this – does your organization show an appropriate level of commitment to ‘do the right thing’ (e.g., comply with the regulation, honor the contract, manage its records)?
Good faith effort implies intent and action, but not perfection.
That means we don’t have to go to our business execs and try to sell an ‘all or nothing’ approach that may sound to them something like “We have this humongous problem and we need to get all of our information under records management control pronto!” Despite our passion, many execs simply may think the problem is too big to solve, or that it just doesn’t rank as high as other business problems.
A wise boss once told me never to go to execs with only a statement of a problem. Instead, explain the problem, and then explain the options for solving it with your recommendation for a particular approach. The exec is then able weigh value and risk and decide which approach is best for the business.
When management identifies priorities for RM improvement based on value and risk to the business, not only do they show good faith effort – a commitment to do the right thing – but it’s good for business because the improvements will lead directly to increased value and/or reduced risk. And the execs will believe in the benefits, because they chose them in the first place.
How do you make ‘good faith effort that’s good for business’ actionable?
Over the years, we at Cohasset Associates have developed the concept of Assured Records Management (ARM) to help our clients sleep at night and enable them to be ‘assured’ that they are doing enough. Our approach is firmly grounded in good faith effort based on risk and value. Provided below are some highlights of the ARM methodology that may help you get started in your own organization.
First, we believe that Assured Records Management (ARM) is the application of appropriate performance standards in alignment with business priorities to enable organizations to get it right where it matters most.
Specifically, organizations need to achieve appropriate performance in two areas:
- Organizational commitment
- Life cycle control of records and systems
Organizational commitment is measured across five Dimensions of Success, Business Commitment, Legal Engagement, Records Management Program, IT Enablers, and Metrics and Continuous Improvement. Good faith effort requires that organizations work toward a reasonable level of commitment in all of these five dimensions.
The last dimension – Continuous Improvement-- provides the process that ensures that RM good faith effort is good for business. By implementing a sustainable, governed continuous improvement program, the organization commits to an ongoing process whereby RM strengths and gaps are periodically assessed, and the business establishes priorities for improvement based on risk and value to the business. As these improvements are addressed, new priorities are established and the cycle goes on, gradually filling gaps in organizational commitment and in life cycle control of records and systems.
We have found that the trick is to use a simple, jargon-free process to help the business understand gaps and identify priorities, and to emphasize that we are aiming for appropriate performance, not perfect performance.
For example, it’s important to explain that the level of control required for any record or non-record varies according to its value or risk. To identify gaps, we use four simple descriptors (see the illustration below) to enable the business to characterize the current and desired level of control for a particular type of information or systems (of course, based on value and risk). When a valuable type of information is assessed as ‘Ad hoc’ and it should be ‘Assured’, gaps and priorities are obvious. Assured Records Management Performance Levels Assured Absolutely locked down, controls are integrated with the business process, meets the highest regulatory standard. Reasonable Good control, enabled by technology, predictable. Manual Controls are entirely manual, and depend on user training and action. Ad hoc Controls are absent or up to the individual.
Organizations can use the same simple descriptors to assess their organizational commitment in the five Dimensions of Success. For example, an organization with some legal input and a records management program (let’s say with an RM policy, retention schedule and training), might be ‘Manual’. Whereas an organization that has implemented governed continuous improvement based on all five Dimensions of Success, would be ‘Reasonable’. This would put them on the road to ‘good faith effort that’s good for business.’
Is this your destination, too? We’ve found that it can be very helpful to jumpstart the continuous improvement process with a workshop (including business, legal, RM, and IT) in which participants share their perspectives, perform a high level current /future state assessment, articulate priorities based on business value and risk, and determine immediate next steps. We have designed a two-day ARM workshop specifically to meet this need. But whether you choose to begin the assessments and improvement process on your own, or engage outside expertise to facilitate your journey, the only way to arrive at your destination is to get started!
