Governance is often seen as a brake.
I have come to think of it rather as a steering system.
A brake exists to slow you down. That is how many founders initially picture governance.
Something that sits between the decision and the doing, asking for one more sign-off, one more meeting, one more reason not to move.
But that is not what it does when it is designed well.
A steering system does not reduce your speed. It gives you greater control as you move forward.
It allows an organisation to navigate change, growth and complexity without losing direction.
The companies that struggle are almost never the ones that move quickly.
More often, they are the ones that grew faster than the governance around them.
Eventually there is a capital raise, a change in leadership, a dispute between shareholders, or another important moment that requires clarity, accountability and decision-making structures that were never properly established.
By then those foundations are much harder to build.
That is why, for me, governance has never been about slowing organisations down.
It is about giving them the confidence and resilience to keep moving when the decisions become more complex.
The real question is not whether governance slows growth.
It is whether the organisation is building the foundations it will eventually need before circumstances make those foundations indispensable.