Governance acumen

This diagram explains the governance framework of NPY Women’s Council.

To understand our way of governance, it’s important to understand the word acumen. Acumen is a person’s skill to make good and sound judgement. Such people are often described as clever, wise and thoughtful.

NPY Women’s Council’s governance acumen is made up of three parts.

1. Business acumen is making good decisions about our corporate responsibility to keep the NPY Women’s Council strong. Examples include: managing funding agreements, delivering a project on time and within budget, managing timesheets and leave forms, managing compliance and risk and investing money wisely in projects that support the organisation and the NPY region.
   
   
2. Cultural acumen is about our understanding of Anangu culture and its operating rhythm and letting this knowledge guide our conduct, values and behaviour. Having cultural acumen is important at NPY Women’s Council because it helps us to work with our clients and partners, not for our clients and partners. Examples include: understanding how authority works in Anangu culture, starting on the right foot with a client or a community may come down to showing good Anangu manners and lastly starting a new project confidently, with a worker knowing the cultural acumen needed to start, sustain and finish it well.
   
   
3. Leadership acumen comes from workers and directors understanding and demonstrating strong business and cultural acumen (tjungu/ together) and using those skills to support them and others to work to a high standard. Consistent business and cultural protocols and practices will create exemplar content in decision making and overall should create good and peaceful governance. When workers’ and directors’ leadership flourishes, the Council flourishes.
   
   

We’re all on a learning and development journey and we each have areas where we excel and areas that challenge us. We want workers and directors to show and share their strengths and to be supported to develop knowledge and embrace experiences in other areas. At NPY Women’s Council, we aim to create a learning and development environment across these three areas so that everyone has the opportunity to work well in both worlds.