How to Solve Big GRC Challenges Fast

It’s Monday morning. Your CEO walks by your desk and casually asks:

“Hey—how’s our GRC program going?”

You freeze.

You know there are gaps. Maybe roles aren’t clear. Maybe the spreadsheet you rely on is out of date.

Maybe you’ve been so focused on hitting deadlines that you haven’t had time to step back and fix what’s broken.

You’re not alone. Most GRC programs don’t fail because of a bad framework.

They fail because of how we implement them.

I’ve seen it happen — smart teams, strong intent, but still spinning their wheels. Why? Because they hit the same roadblocks over and over again.

Let’s break that cycle.

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What are the most common GRC challenges?

The most common GRC challenges include unclear roles, poor communication, scope creep, lack of executive support, overreliance on spreadsheets, and failure to align GRC with business strategy. These roadblocks often lead to inefficiency, non-compliance, and program failure.

Below, I’m going to walk you through 10 of the most common GRC challenges I’ve seen — and the simple, practical ways you can overcome them.

For a foundational overview, start with building a GRC program that aligns with your business model and culture.

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1. Unclear Roles and Responsibilities

The challenge: No one knows who owns what. Risk? Compliance? IT? Everyone assumes someone else is handling it.

Why it matters: GRC falls apart without clear accountability. Gaps grow. Controls weaken. Audits fail. In fact, 70% of GRC programs fail due to unclear ownership and poor communication.

At one company I worked with, the compliance officer assumed IT owned the vendor risk process. IT assumed Legal had it. Turns out, no one was tracking third-party risks — until a due diligence request from a major client exposed the gap.

What to do:

• ✅ Create a RACI matrix. It clarifies who is Responsible (doing the work), Accountable (making the decision), Consulted (offering input), and Informed (kept in the loop). Try it for high-risk workflows like incident response or vendor onboarding.
• 📋 Define roles early — during planning, not after problems show up.
• 🧠 Keep it simple. One page is better than ten.

For example, ISO 27001 Clause 5.3 doesn’t just require assigning roles — it expects them to be communicated and reinforced through policy, awareness, and oversight. If your team can’t name who owns vendor risk or policy sign-off, this is where to start.

Not sure where to begin? Choose one core GRC process — like policy reviews or vendor due diligence — and map out who owns what. You might be surprised how many gaps you uncover.

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Want more? See GRC roles and responsibilities for a detailed breakdown of who does what.

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2. Poor Communication Between Teams

The challenge: Risk, IT, legal, and compliance all speak different languages. They operate in silos.

Why it matters: GRC is cross-functional by design. If your teams can’t collaborate, risk gets missed. I once worked with a security team that flagged a high-risk vendor. But Legal didn’t act — because no one had shared the risk report. Weeks later, the vendor caused a data leak. The team had the intel… but not the alignment.

Often, it’s not bad intent—it’s different priorities. Legal speaks liability. IT speaks uptime. Security speaks controls. Without translation, risk slips through the cracks.

What to do:

• 🤝 Run regular cross-team check-ins. Short, focused, and friction-free.
• 📊 Use shared dashboards so everyone sees the same data.
• 🗣️ Translate “security speak” into plain business terms.
• 💬 Ask this in your next team sync: “What’s one risk you’re tracking that other teams should know about?” It’s a simple question — but it builds real alignment.

Pro Tip: One client of mine replaced their technical-only risk briefings with 5-minute storytelling sessions that explained each risk in terms of business impact. Engagement — and understanding — skyrocketed.

Frameworks like COSO (Principle 14), ISO 27001 (Clause 7.4), and NIST CSF (ID.GV-3) all emphasize the importance of internal communication — not just to document controls, but to ensure teams understand and actively collaborate around them.

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3. Scope Creep

The challenge: You start with a clear goal — and end up trying to manage everything.

Why it matters: Stretching too far too fast kills momentum. You’ll burn out your team. I once worked with a risk team that planned to roll out a new policy management system. Halfway through, they added audit workflows, vendor onboarding, and third-party risk scoring — all before the original policy piece was even live. Six months later, nothing was finished.

Scope creep doesn’t always look like chaos. Sometimes it looks like ambition. But if everything’s a priority, nothing is.

What to do:

• 📌 Define scope clearly — and document it.
• 🧱 Use phased rollouts. Solve one problem at a time.
• 🚫 Push back when new work doesn’t align with your core objectives.

Pro Tip: Ask this at every planning session: “Does this help us meet the original goal — or is it a new goal?” That one question has saved me months of rework.

Frameworks like ISO 27001 (Clause 4.3), COSO’s Strategy & Objective-Setting component, and NIST RMF Step 1 (Categorize) all stress the need to define what’s in — and out — of scope. Not just for documentation’s sake, but because without clear boundaries, GRC efforts sprawl and lose focus. These frameworks help teams create alignment and deliver outcomes by drawing the line between what matters now — and what comes next.

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4. No Real Executive Buy-In

The challenge: The exec team says the right things… but they don’t show up when it counts.

Why it matters: Without top-level support, GRC looks like “extra work” — not a business enabler. And 45% of organizations say lack of executive support is the biggest barrier to GRC success.

I once worked with a global tech company where the CISO had strong security practices in place — but executives only showed up for audits. When the business faced a major incident, no one on the board could interpret the risk dashboard. They had the data — but not the buy-in. Without executive engagement, GRC becomes an orphaned initiative.

Executives aren’t the problem — they’re the lever. But they need a reason to care. GRC has to connect to what they value: business performance, customer trust, and brand resilience.

What to do:

• 💼 Show how GRC supports business goals (like speed to market, trust, or cost reduction).
• 🧑‍💼 Invite leaders into key risk discussions.
• 🎉 Celebrate early wins publicly.

Frameworks like ISO 27001 (Clause 5.1), COSO Principle 2, and NIST CSF (ID.GV-1) all call for clear leadership involvement. Not as a checkbox — but as a driver of accountability, decision-making, and alignment between risk and strategic goals.

For help with this, read how to align GRC with business strategy.

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5. Treating GRC as a One-Off Project

The challenge: Teams run a one-time compliance push, then go back to business as usual.

Why it matters: Risk doesn’t stop changing. GRC has to evolve, too. I once worked with a healthcare startup that ran a massive compliance sprint before launching their product. The audit passed — but six months later, their controls were outdated, documentation was stale, and staff had forgotten key policies. They had checked the box — then put the whole box on a shelf.

GRC isn’t a project. It’s a habit. One-and-done thinking creates gaps that don’t show up until it’s too late.

What to do:

• 🔁 Build GRC into everyday workflows.
• 👥 Assign long-term ownership — not just a project lead.
• 📅 Set a regular cadence for reviews and updates.

Frameworks like NIST CSF (PR.IP), ISO 27001 Clause 9.3 (Management review), and COSO’s Monitoring component all emphasize continuous improvement. They guide you to build systems that adapt — so your GRC program matures, instead of resets, every year.

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6. Relying Too Much on Spreadsheets

The challenge: You’ve got dozens of spreadsheets tracking risks, controls, audits, and vendors.

Why it matters: Spreadsheets don’t scale. They break. People make errors. And no one knows which version is the latest. Manual GRC processes increase error rates by 62%.

I worked with a regional bank that ran its entire compliance operation out of Excel. When a regulator requested evidence of access controls across systems, the team delivered five mismatched spreadsheets — all with different numbers. The bank avoided a fine, but barely. It wasn’t a lack of effort. It was a lack of structure.

Spreadsheets are great for brainstorming. Terrible for control.

What to do:

• 🛠️ Use a GRC platform — even a lightweight one is better than nothing.
• 🗂️ Centralise your data so everyone works from the same source.
• ⚙️ Automate wherever possible to reduce manual effort.

Frameworks like ISO 27001 Clause 7.5 (Documented Information), NIST CSF DE.CM (Security Monitoring), and COSO’s Control Activities all promote structured, consistent documentation and monitoring. They’re not anti-spreadsheet — they’re pro-system. These frameworks guide teams to create a single source of truth and reduce human error at scale.

Need inspiration? Learn how compliance automation can free your team from spreadsheet chaos.

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7. Failing to Align GRC with Business Strategy

The challenge: GRC runs as a back-office function. It’s not linked to your business goals.

Why it matters: If GRC doesn’t support strategy, it gets sidelined. I worked with a company where risk teams reported metrics no one understood — or used. Meanwhile, the product team made market moves with zero input from security. They weren’t ignoring GRC. They just didn’t see the connection.

If GRC doesn’t shape decisions, it becomes decoration.

What to do:

• 🎯 Map risks and controls to business outcomes.
• 🧭 Involve GRC in strategic planning.
• 📈 Use metrics that matter to the business — not just to auditors.

Frameworks like COSO ERM (Strategy & Objective-Setting), ISO 27001 Clause 6.2 (Information security objectives), and NIST CSF ID.BE-4 all push GRC teams to connect controls to real business outcomes. Because if risk data doesn't shape what the business does next — it's just noise.

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8. Ignoring the Human Element

The challenge: You focus on frameworks, tools, and policies — and forget people.

Why it matters: Culture kills compliance. If your team doesn’t care, your GRC program won’t stick. I once spoke with a compliance officer who rolled out a new policy management system — only to find no one had read the new policies. Not because they were lazy — but because no one explained why they mattered.

GRC isn’t just about documentation. It’s about motivation. And that starts with people.

What to do:

• 👨‍🏫 Make training practical, not just theoretical.
• 🏆 Recognise and reward good security behaviours.
• 🧵 Tell stories — not just stats. Make it personal.

Frameworks like ISO 27001 Clause 7.2 & 7.3 (Competence & Awareness), COSO Principle 14, and NIST CSF PR.AT (Awareness & Training) all reinforce that GRC success depends on people being aware, engaged, and equipped — not just systems being in place.

Pro Tip: Culture isn’t created by policy. It’s shaped by what you celebrate and what you tolerate.

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9. Measuring the Wrong Things

The challenge: You’re tracking a hundred KPIs — but none tell you if GRC is actually working.

Why it matters: Bad metrics lead to bad decisions. I worked with a risk team that proudly showed off a dashboard with 87 metrics. But when asked which ones had improved business performance or reduced exposure, they paused. Lots of data. No direction.

Not everything that counts can be counted. And not everything that’s counted actually counts.

What to do:

• 📉 Focus on outcome-based metrics: risk reduction, control effectiveness, and audit readiness.
• ❌ Avoid vanity metrics. If it doesn’t drive action, drop it.
• 🧾 Keep your dashboard lean. Simple is powerful.

Frameworks like ISO 27001 Clause 9.1 (Monitoring, Measurement), COSO Principle 16 (Ongoing Evaluation), and NIST CSF ME all emphasize meaningful, actionable metrics. They help you distinguish between noise and insight — and make sure you’re measuring what moves the needle.

If you’re not sure where to start, run a GRC maturity assessment to benchmark your program.

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10. Not Learning From Past Mistakes

The challenge: Issues repeat. Lessons get buried. Nothing changes.

Why it matters: Every incident is a gift — if you act on it. And yet, companies lose an average of $4 million per compliance breach — often from avoidable errors.

I worked with a fintech that had three near-miss phishing attacks in under a year. Same vector. Same team. Same response. Each time, they patched the system — but never updated the training. On the fourth attempt, the attackers got in.

Reviewing a mistake is easy. Changing because of it? That takes intention.

What to do:

• 🕵️‍♂️ Run after-action reviews. Ask: what failed, why, and what will we do differently?
• 🧠 Capture lessons in a central knowledge base.
• 📘 Turn insights into playbooks your team can use.

Frameworks like ISO 27001 Clause 10.1 (Corrective Action), COSO Principle 17 (Reporting Deficiencies), and NIST CSF RS.IM (Improvements) all stress the value of structured learning. They encourage organisations to treat incidents not as failures — but as feedback loops to drive future performance.

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Quick Wins to Improve GRC Today

You don’t have to fix everything at once. Start with a few small actions that create momentum:

• ✅ Clarify one role – Pick a key process and assign a clear owner this week.
• 📋 Simplify one policy – Rewrite a confusing control or guideline in plain English.
• 🤝 Run a 15-minute risk sync – Invite one team to share top risks and blockers.
• 🔍 Review your top 3 open risks – Are they mitigated, accepted, or just ignored?
• 💡 Highlight one small win – Recognise a teammate who flagged a risk or asked a smart compliance question.

These small steps build culture, clarity, and confidence. Start there—and grow from it.

Let’s get to work.

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Final Thoughts

Let’s be honest: your framework isn’t the problem. It’s the gaps in ownership, communication, and follow-through that derail progress.

But here’s the good news — those challenges are fixable.

Here’s your no-fluff, get-it-done playbook:

• ✅ Clarify ownership — Use a simple RACI matrix for key GRC workflows
• 🤝 Break the silos — Run short cross-functional syncs to align risks
• 🚫 Stop scope creep — Stick to phased rollouts that solve one problem at a time
• 💬 Secure exec buy-in — Show how GRC drives trust, speed, and ROI
• 🔁 Make it continuous — GRC isn’t a project. It’s how you run the business
• 🧠 Build a culture — Train, reward, and involve people — not just policies
• 📊 Track what matters — Use outcome-based metrics, not vanity dashboards
• 📘 Learn from incidents — Turn every issue into a playbook, not a postmortem

You don’t need perfection. You need progress.

Start small. Fix one friction point this week. Then the next.

👉 Want more practical GRC tactics in your inbox? Subscribe to the GRCMana Newsletter. Build clarity, alignment, and resilience — one step at a time.

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