I spent much of the day yesterday in the company of my doctoral supervisor, an outstanding Masters candidate and a very capable governance consultant. The purpose of the meeting was to tackle some interesting—and rather challenging—questions to do with the practices of governance, hubris and groupthink, collective decision-making and cognitive biases. In addition to being topical (read further down this blog), these topics seem to be important building blocks towards gaining a robust understanding of governance in practice. Others appear to be exploring similar topics as well.

We made good progress, but a long list of questions and opportunities to dig deeper remain. While I'm not at liberty to discuss what emerged, several seemingly separate strands of thought, research and practice appear to be coalescing. Normally when I come away from such sessions, I listen to a podcast to clear my mind. However my mind was in overdrive yesterday as I drove home. Could a grand theory of governance, so long ruled out by many, be possible after all?