Many writers on labour-managed firms highlight the risk of shared control degenerating (Cornforth, Economic and Industrial Democracy 16 (4):487–523, 1995; Diefenbach, Organization Studies 40 (4):545–62, 2018; Dow, The labor-managed firm: Theoretical foundations, 2018; Pencavel, Elgar research reviews in economics, 2013). Founders who started democratically organised firms may succumb to what the German political scientist Robert Michels called the “iron law of oligarchy” (2000 (Michels, Political parties: A sociological study of the oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy, 1915), pp. 224–35). This chapter draws on the preceding interviews to explain how the player-governed orchestras (PGOs) that I studied have resisted this threat of decay in their democratic governance. A key ingredient is the adaptability at the core of the governance models used by these PGOs. Their balancing of the tensions inherent in artistic control and the challenges of boosting job security are central to sustaining player-governance. The chapter also highlights the role of social energy (Greenblatt, Shakespearean negotiations: The circulation of social energy in Renaissance England, 1988) along with the fostering and harnessing of intra-organisational identity. The chapter’s last part links player control and musical quality. For any orchestral governance system to be sustainable, it must facilitate and empower the best possible music-making. The closing section charts the extent to which player-governance accomplishes this and, in so doing, sets up its own sustainability. The chapter helps readers understand the key elements in the ability of player-governed orchestras to sustain their governance models against the odds.