By Swati Prasad
Have you ever seen "too much governance" stall a partnership?
When an alliance runs into trouble, it's often our instinct as alliance managers to double down on governance. And to be fair, governance matters: it provides the structure, rhythm, and clarity that keeps partnerships aligned and moving toward shared objectives. But when governance becomes the default fix, we risk prescribing activity instead of solving the problem. Sometimes the prescription "just add more governance" is not the right medicine.
More Isn't Always Better
In the past, I've been involved in partnerships that stalled for a variety of reasons, and it was up to alliance management to get them back on track and course correct. The near-automatic response? Add more governance: more frequent check-ins, pre-meetings, more layers, more structure and subteams to work through issues.
It's a logical reaction. As alliance managers, we want first and foremost to solve the problem and get the alliance heading in the right direction again. We want to regain control, restore alignment, and move forward quickly. So we look to institute more oversight, more checks and balances, and more frequent communications.
It seems sensible, but this approach can end up treating the symptoms of the problem rather than addressing the root cause. Worse, it can even backfire. Instead of accelerating progress, excessive governance can create exhaustion, slow decision making, disempower teams, dilute accountability, and quietly erode trust.
Look Beneath the Surface: From Symptoms to Root Causes
More governance often treats the symptoms, not the underlying issue. Communication gaps, budget overruns, inefficient use of resources, missed milestones, people and teams being spread too thin are easy to spot, all too obvious and crying out for solutions. They demand attention. But if we just apply a Band-Aid to these symptoms and don't dig into what the root causes are, we will not be solving the problems long-term. Responding only at the surface level applies a Band-Aid to what is often a systemic, structural, and multidimensional problem.
What's required instead is a shift in perspective: Pause. Diagnose. Understand.
Adding governance layers without addressing root causes rarely fixes the alliance. Not only that, but by adding more touchpoints and layers, we make our governance more resource-heavy and cumbersome without even solving the real issue at the heart of the alliance. Overreliance on governance can lead to an approach that is overly process-oriented, rather than results- or outcomes-oriented.
The Role of the Alliance Leader: Strategic and Holistic
Strong alliance leaders don't just manage governance; they use it deliberately as a strategic lever. That requires stepping back and viewing the alliance holistically.
Start with better questions: Where is friction truly coming from? What's misaligned: strategy, incentives, ownership, or expectations? What underlying dynamics are driving the visible problems?
Our role is not simply to facilitate discussions, but to synthesize complexity, frame choices, and make trade-offs explicit. We add the most value when we can connect the dots, present the different options that are available, talk about the trade-offs, and then go back to our stakeholders and propose solutions.
What's in It for Them? Stakeholder Engagement
At the same time, stakeholders evaluate decisions through a practical lens: "What does this mean for my team, my targets, my priorities?"
Stakeholders may sometimes also look at problems very narrowly: What's in it for them? How will a given solution affect their function? If you can address their concerns as part of your solution, they will likely be more receptive and engage with you far more constructively. So it's important to translate your analysis of the situation into more actionable business insights, rather than just being theoretical.
To move forward, insight must translate into action: clear, pragmatic recommendations grounded in stakeholder realities.
Of course, speed matters! It's important to remember that you're not simply proposing solutions in a vacuum. Time is always of the essence in alliances, and there are costs and risks when decisions get delayed, deadlines missed, and milestones not achieved. For you and your alliance partner, those costs can be very heavy, depending on where you sit and the situation of your company. In alliances, delayed decisions carry real financial, operational, and strategic costs. The goal of governance design should be to enable momentum, not constrain it.
Governance: Enabler or Hidden Liability?
Excessive governance doesn't just consume time, it changes behavior. Too much governance not only can be exhausting, as people are pulled into more meetings, but it can also erode trust. How? Additional layers, meetings, communications, and touchpoints can feel like micromanagement. There is simply too much oversight, and your teams may feel like they're not actually empowered to do their jobs and make decisions. Nobody wants to be under a microscope, so when you overengineer the process to try to save the alliance, you can create the opposite result. The extra bulky governance often becomes a time sink and a burden. When governance becomes overengineered, the unintended consequences emerge quickly:
- Teams hesitate instead of acting
- Ownership becomes diffused
- Decision making slows
- Confidence declines
Ultimately, this erodes trust, the very foundation alliances depend on. And as we know, having to work to rebuild trust that's been established is not easy!
Certainly, when governance becomes a burden, it undermines the very collaboration it was designed to enable. A more effective path forward is often to simplify where possible. Rather than continually adding governance layers, organizations should look for ways to streamline operations through automation, centralized reporting, shared KPIs, and insights to reduce reliance on meetings as the primary alignment mechanism.
At its best, governance is not merely administration or bureaucracy. It's not about holding meetings for the sake of meetings: it's a leadership lever. While governance may appear to be about creating structure and boundaries, its real purpose is empowerment. Individuals across the alliance should feel empowered to contribute meaningfully by sharing insights, making decisions, and demonstrating leadership within their areas of expertise. When done well, that is intentional leadership in action.
Right-Sized Governance: Built for Speed and Empowerment
When governance is right-sized and fit for purpose, decisions are made closer to where the work happens rather than being imposed from the top or repeatedly escalated to executive leadership. Instead of operating through reactive governance, where urgent issues, conflicts, and unexpected problems trigger frequent escalation, organizations can adopt a more responsive approach. Responsive governance creates clear structures and guardrails while empowering teams to make decisions within their areas of expertise. Whereas reactive governance relies on escalation after problems emerge, responsive governance enables teams to act with greater ownership, clarity, and agility before issues become disruptive.
In responsive governance:
- Teams are trusted to act
- Decision rights are clear
- Escalations decrease rather than increase
- Governance supports execution instead of slowing it down
Responsive governance doesn't eliminate structure, it sharpens it.
Course-correcting an alliance often requires significant change management. But replacing burdensome governance with right-sized governance creates meaningful impact: clearer roles, sharper agendas, more purposeful forums, and fewer but more effective touchpoints.
In my experience, when alliance counterparts and I implemented governance this way, the impact was immediate:
- Accelerated decisions
- Re-engaged teams
- Tighter timelines
Governance should never default to control; it should serve as a leadership lever. The strongest alliance leaders use governance to create focus, clarity, accountability, and momentum, not layers of unnecessary bureaucracy. When designed intentionally, governance becomes an enabler of speed, trust, empowered decision making, and measurable results. The most effective alliance leaders don't ask, "Do we need more governance?" They ask, "Do we have the right governance to achieve the outcomes we need?"
Because ultimately, alliance success is not measured by how much structure we create, but by how effectively that structure enables people, performance, and alliance outcomes.
Dr. Swati Prasad is Director, Alliance Management at Alloy Therapeutics. A strategic alliance leader with 20+ years of experience across the pharmaceutical, biotech, CRO, and life sciences industries, she specializes in building partnerships, leading complex collaborations, and driving business outcomes across the drug development lifecycle. Prior to Alloy, she drove portfolio value creation and operational excellence through cross-functional leadership roles at Mosaic Neuroscience, Charles River Laboratories, and AstraZeneca R&D Boston. She also serves as an Education Instructor for the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP), helping shape the next generation of alliance leaders and advance best practices across the global alliance community. She holds a doctorate in chemistry from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and an MBA from Wilmington University.
About the alliance leadership spotlight series
The alliance leadership spotlight series is a joint initiative of The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) and allianceboard to share practical knowledge in the alliance management community. It showcases Alliance Management professionals taking the lead in addressing challenges and driving alliance success.
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