Grade said in his opening speech to a Department for Culture, Media & Sport seminar today: "No one denies that the BBC needs modernising. But before tearing it up at the roots, we must remember that over 80 years after its creation, the BBC still enjoys widespread support from its licence-fee payers."
The Burns panel paper, released on Wednesday, suggested the licence fee argument would become "increasingly difficult" to sustain when conditional access becomes available. As a result, it called for a detailed examination of the BBC's funding to take place before the end of the next Charter.
Grade also criticised the government's Burns panel of not doing itself justice by releasing the paper before the BBC's internal review, Building Public Value, is released on Tuesday December 7.
"The board of governors readily agrees it needs to change... that is why we put forward our radical ideas in Building Public Value to which, if I may say, your document does not do justice -- perhaps because you published in advance of this opportunity to hear about them."
In response, Grade announced plans for a new governance unit staffed by experts in a range of fields from performance monitoring to broadcast strategy.
He also outlined an objective criteria so the public will be able to judge the governors' performance to ensure they are working in the public interest.
A "governors' protocol" is to be introduced to define governors' chief responsibilities, which will be incorporated into the new Royal Charter, and the BBC complaints procedure is also to be be given a dramatic overhaul, although full details are not available yet.
Grade said more can be done for public accountability, including strengthening links with the public through an annual general meeting with licence-fee payers acrosss the country to make their views known.
He said of the Building Public Value reforms: "It would be a serious mistake to underestimate the scale and effect of the radical reforms we have introduced."
Recent reports suggest the BBC is about to axe 5,000 staff and move the lions' share of its in-house production staff, including children's and regional news, to Manchester.
The findings of today's seminar, along with the Burns paper, will then feed into a Green Paper due to be published early next year, affecting the BBC's Royal Charter, which concerns the government's funding of the corporation for the next decade.
Lord Burns said: "We have debated a range of issues in our public seminars and have found that there is widespread agreement that we need an appropriate system of governance and regulation for the future."
The Burns panel is the independent panel advising media secretary Tessa Jowell on the BBC's 10-year Royal Charter review.
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