Standards That Stick
In many organisations, developing standards often results in what we’d call compliance theatre. This pattern involves creating protocols and filling out documentation that’s supposed to improve outcomes, yet the actual impact remains negligible. The cycle’s familiar: forms get filled, boxes get checked, and protocols get filed away. It creates an architecture of improvement without any tangible benefits.
They’ve confused the paperwork for the progress itself.
This process doesn’t just exhaust practitioners – it diverts resources without yielding measurable improvements. The distinction between effective standards and compliance theatre lies in how they’re built. Standards that emerge from systematic collaboration create lasting improvements. These are developed by capturing frontline expertise, sustaining governance frameworks, and incorporating new knowledge without disruption.
Examples from clinical audit work in New South Wales hospitals, governance infrastructure, international customs harmonisation, and Victorian regulatory evolution show how collaborative processes lead to genuine improvements. This contrasts sharply with those imposed through top-down mandates. Understanding why some approaches succeed while others fail reveals the fundamental differences between meaningful standards and bureaucratic ritual.
The Failure of Top-Down Mandates
Standards imposed from the top down often fail because they don’t account for practical realities. Policy committees may design standards that appear logical in a conference room but prove unworkable in practice. Picture designing a car based solely on traffic theory without ever sitting behind a wheel. This disconnect results in protocols that ignore the constraints, workflows, or resource realities faced by practitioners.
The consequences work both ways.
Practitioners may develop workarounds that lead to non-compliance, hidden by documentation. Organisations may enforce compliance that wastes resources without improving performance. This creates compliance theatre where documentation shows standards are ‘followed,’ but actual practice diverges or creates work without benefit.
Instead of relying on top-down mandates, organisations need systematic processes that capture frontline expertise and channel it through formal approval mechanisms. This requires more than informal feedback. It needs structured review methodologies, formal reporting channels, and governance approval pathways. Understanding how systematic review processes transform practitioner insights into standards is crucial for genuine improvement.
Capturing Frontline Expertise
Effective standards emerge from systematic review processes that capture frontline expertise through structured methodologies. These processes channel findings through formal reporting pathways to governance bodies with the authority to update protocols, creating adoption pathways based on documented evidence rather than individual advocacy.
This requires systematic quality-improvement processes that combine structured data collection with formal reporting mechanisms to transform practitioner observations into adopted protocols.
Amelia Denniss, an Advanced Trainee physician working within New South Wales health services, provides one example of this approach. Her quality-improvement work involves conducting retrospective chart reviews using routinely collected hospital data to assess guideline adherence and resource utilisation. These findings get fed through internal reporting channels to unit leads for action planning. Within multidisciplinary groups, she aligns drafts with existing local policies and national college recommendations before submitting them to clinical governance committees for approval and dissemination. The incorporation of audit findings into unit education sessions and the adoption of revised protocols through standard hospital endorsement pathways demonstrate the impact of this structured pathway.
Sure, it’s methodical work, but that’s precisely what makes findings stick rather than disappear into recommendation limbo. This structured pathway demonstrates how repeatable processes capture practitioner expertise more effectively than individual advocacy, ensuring standards evolve from documented evidence rather than assumption.
The mechanism combines frontline observation with institutional formalisation. It doesn’t depend on individual relationships or informal networks but operates through established institutional channels. The evidence base ensures that findings derive from actual practice data, making recommendations grounded in operational reality.
This model applies beyond healthcare, wherever standards affect frontline work. Whether in manufacturing quality standards informed by line worker observations or education curricula informed by classroom teacher experience, the universal pattern involves systematic capture through structured review, formal channels to decision-makers, and governance approval, creating an adoption pathway. Standards become useful guidance rather than burdensome requirements when they reflect documented practice reality.
Governance Frameworks That Endure
Standards need governance infrastructure to survive. We’re talking about formal frameworks that provide accountability and strategic direction. Without this backbone, even brilliant standards crumble when their champions leave the organisation.
What does this infrastructure look like? Committees with clear mandates. Strategic plans that tie standards directly to what the organisation wants to achieve. Mechanisms for engaging stakeholders so standards stay relevant. Accountability frameworks that keep everyone focused. These structures weave standards into how organisations actually operate, not just into personal relationships.
Rod Balding’s work as Chief Executive Officer of Standards Australia shows how governance infrastructure sustains standards across transitions. His governance experience spans sports organisations, including his role as Chair of the Finance & Risk Committee for the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022. This work focused on sustaining standards through strategic leadership and stakeholder engagement processes that delivered a landmark event with significant financial and social impacts.
Look, without these formal structures, even the best intentions fade when people move on.
These governance principles work at every level. Hospital clinical governance committees review protocol updates. National standards organisations coordinate stakeholder engagement across entire industries. Formal structures create accountability while allowing standards to evolve. They ensure standards persist and stay relevant no matter who’s in charge. But governance within single organisations is just the beginning – maintaining consistency across borders and jurisdictions presents an entirely different challenge.
Achieving Consistency Without Rigidity
International standards work by setting universal principles that let countries implement them differently. They specify what you need to achieve, not exactly how to get there. This creates cross-border consistency without forcing everyone into the same rigid box.
Standards that work perfectly in one country often crash and burn when you try them elsewhere. Different regulatory environments, varying resource levels, cultural contexts – they all matter. Too little consistency? The standard loses its coordinating power. Too much rigidity? It becomes completely unworkable.
The solution lies in establishing clear principles while allowing procedural flexibility. Countries can adapt methods to fit their local contexts.
Sergio Mujica demonstrates this approach in practice. As Secretary-General of the International Organisation for Standardisation since July 2017, Mujica works on developing standards that function across diverse national contexts. His background includes harmonising customs procedures, and he applies similar thinking at ISO. He focuses on consistency in cross-border processes while allowing countries to adapt procedures to their specific situations. This principle-based approach maintains outcome consistency while permitting contextual adaptation, avoiding the rigidity that makes uniform standards impractical across diverse contexts.
Standards That Evolve
Standards stay effective through built-in evolution mechanisms. They need regulatory frameworks and formal update processes that add new capabilities while keeping core functions intact. You can’t just replace entire systems.
Static standards become obsolete fast. Yesterday’s best practice turns into tomorrow’s roadblock when new evidence shows up. Complete system replacement? That’s a recipe for disruption, lost institutional knowledge, abandoned infrastructure that still works, and staff who resist learning entirely new systems. Evolution beats revolution every time.
Victoria’s Improving Cancer Outcomes (Diagnosis Reporting) Regulations 2025 show how this works. From 18 September 2025, these regulations updated mandatory reporting to include biomarker testing results in pathology reports. The Victorian Cancer Registry registers all reported cancer cases from hospitals and prescribed health services under Anti-Cancer Council Victoria’s oversight (operating as Cancer Council Victoria). They’re adding new diagnostic capabilities while strengthening existing surveillance functions rather than scrapping everything.
This matters because standards that can’t absorb new knowledge become barriers. Update frameworks that add capabilities while preserving core functions, enabling continuous improvement without chaos.
Effective evolution needs specific components. Regulatory frameworks must specify update procedures. Governance committees review proposed changes. Stakeholder consultation ensures changes address real needs. Pilot testing validates improvements before full rollout. Updates are evidence-based changes justified by new knowledge, not knee-jerk reactions.
Evolution mechanisms work across different scales when they capture systematic expertise and build governance infrastructure. Clinical guidelines might need annual updates while structural safety standards stay stable for decades. The formal evolution mechanism matters more than how often you update.
Measuring Improvement Versus Documenting Compliance
The ultimate distinction between effective standards and compliance theatre lies in the measurement approach. Do organisations assess actual outcome improvement? Or do they simply track completion of required activities?
Most organisations measure compliance, but rarely measure whether standards improve outcomes. High compliance scores create false confidence while outcomes remain unchanged or worsen. It’s like celebrating perfect attendance while ignoring whether anyone actually learned anything.
Outcome measurement requires specifying intended improvements and how they’ll be assessed. For example, measuring not just ‘audits completed’ but ‘audit findings incorporated into revised protocols’ and ‘revised protocols demonstrating improved outcomes.’ In governance contexts, measuring not just ‘committee meetings held’ but ‘standards sustained through leadership transitions’ and ‘stakeholder engagement producing relevant updates.’ In harmonisation contexts, measuring not just ‘countries adopting standards’ but ‘cross-border processes functioning consistently’ and ‘implementation variations appropriately accommodating contexts.’ In evolution contexts like Victoria’s regulations, success gets measured by biomarker data reaching the registry in usable form and improving cancer surveillance and treatment planning.
Standards should specify not only required activities but also intended improvements and how improvements will be assessed. For instance, rather than stating ‘conduct annual audits,’ specify ‘conduct annual audits assessing [specific guideline] adherence, with findings reported to [governance body] for protocol revision within [timeframe], and revised protocols assessed for [outcome improvement] within [timeframe].’
Measurement must follow the improvement pathway rather than merely adhering to compliance checkpoints.
Constructing Standards That Stick
Standards that genuinely improve outcomes emerge from practices working in concert. You need systematic audit work that captures frontline insights through governance approval channels. You need customs harmonisation that establishes principles for international consistency while allowing contextual adaptation. You need cancer reporting regulations that incorporate biomarker requirements into existing surveillance infrastructure.
Practical construction principles include building systematic review processes that capture frontline insights through structured methodologies. Then you channel findings through formal reporting pathways to governance bodies with updated authority. Governance infrastructure should sustain standards through personnel transitions by embedding them institutionally.
Here’s the core distinction between compliance theatre and genuine improvement: it’s not about whether standards exist or how rigorous compliance is. It’s about the construction method.
Standards imposed top-down create documentation burdens because they lack operational grounding. Those captured through systematic reviews create useful guidance because they reflect real-world practice. Standards maintained through individual champions disappear when those individuals leave. Those embedded in governance infrastructure persist through transitions. Standards prescribing rigid procedures fail across diverse contexts. Those establishing principles, while permitting variation, achieve consistency without impracticality. Standards that can’t evolve become obsolete barriers. Those with formal update mechanisms remain current enablers.
Organisations mastering these interconnected practices – systematic expertise capture, governance sustainability, principle-based harmonisation, evolution mechanisms, outcome measurement – create standards that stick because practitioners find them genuinely useful rather than merely mandatory. They’ve moved beyond the theatre of compliance into the reality of improvement, where the paperwork finally serves the purpose instead of pretending to be it.
