Governance Drift is the slow erosion of the accountability system that keeps an operation honest.
It rarely disappears
The meetings still happen. The decks still arrive. The calendar still says governance. What changes is the quality of challenge and accountability inside it.
The governance meeting becomes a social event with charts attached.
Watch the pattern
Meetings shorten. Senior attendance declines. Action items linger. Root-cause analyses become weaker or later. Escalations become routine. Reporting gets simplified. Exceptions become normalized.
Governance is an accountability system
Strong governance does more than review performance. It forces clarity on ownership, decisions, root causes, remediation, risk and whether the same failure is quietly repeating.
The contract will not manage the relationship. Governance has to.