“Decision rights are clearly defined.”
We have a RACI. The org chart is current. Every leader has a documented scope. When questions come up, the governance structure has answers.
Nobody is sure who can actually decide this.
You know the RACI is fiction. Not because it’s wrong — because it describes a system that doesn’t match how decisions actually get made. Authority is negotiated in hallways, guessed from calendar invites, and settled by whoever picks up the phone. You spend a third of your time routing decisions the system should know how to route itself.
When people stop asking who decides and start guessing, authority has already dissolved.
“Senior leadership is engaged and hands-on.”
Leaders are responsive. They’re brought into issues early. The organization values executive attention as a signal of priority.
You decide what actually reaches the executive. That’s not in your job description.
You watch issues escalate not because they need senior judgment, but because nobody else will own the decision. And you watch issues get buried — not because they’re resolved, but because surfacing them costs too much. You’re the buffer. You manage both directions. The system runs through you because it doesn’t run on its own.
When the Chief of Staff becomes the routing layer, the system has stopped routing itself.
“We have strong institutional processes.”
Policies are documented. The wiki is up to date. Processes have owners. When questions come up, there are answers.
Nobody remembers why. The policy just persists.
You’ve been here long enough to remember why half these decisions were made. Your predecessor told you the other half. When the next leadership transition happens, that context disappears. Not because it wasn’t important — because the system records what was decided without recording why. The organization runs on inherited rules it can no longer explain.
When no one knows why, the decision is no longer a decision. It’s an accident that persists.
“The executive team is deeply involved.”
Senior leaders are in the room for key decisions. They’re responsive and accessible. The organization benefits from their direct attention.
You manage the calendar of someone who can’t think past Thursday.
Every slot is full. Every meeting is urgent. Strategy keeps getting pushed to next week. You see the pattern: the more accessible they are, the less time they have to do the work that actually requires them. You’re not managing a schedule. You’re managing the gap between what leadership is asked to do and what leadership has time to do.
When the calendar is the bottleneck, leadership has become a shared resource instead of a governing function.
“We’re inclusive in our decision-making.”
Every affected party is consulted. No one gets surprised. Our process is collaborative. Inclusivity is how we build buy-in.
The stakeholder list keeps growing. The decision keeps shrinking.
You watched a decision that needed three people balloon to twelve. Not because it got more complex — because adding people felt safer than owning the call. You manage the calendar Tetris. You see the cost in weeks. Nobody tracks that cost because consultation doesn’t have a KPI.
When everyone has to agree, no one has to decide.
Every lens sees the same system. Shared language is how the system starts to learn.
These aren’t failures of people. They’re the physics of organizations operating at scale and speed.