Do any organizations create job descriptions for their shared governance officers? How many organizations support their shared governance programs with a cost center or fund? How many organizations use their bylaws to support both?
(Originally posted April 29, 2014)

One of the most obvious issues to emerge as I toured hospitals and spoke at conferences this past year was the importance of nurse managers in implementing shared governance. Nurses would quietly approach me after I spoke to tell me that shared governance didn’t have a chance in their unit because the manager didn’t buy into it. On the other hand, in analyzing data from hospitals, certain units would have outrageously high governance scores compared to other units in a hospital; the chief nurse would tell me that the managers in those units were the biggest advocates in the hospital for shared governance.
What to do? Maybe someone could take all the managers in the hospital into a room and tell them it was shared governance or the highway? Or maybe someone could get it together to educate them on its and their importance in determining positive patient, organizational, and professional goals?