Jeff Moench’s Post

There was a decision that sat unresolved for 47 days inside a large, capable organization. Not because nobody cared about it, not because the people involved were slow. But because nobody could agree on who was actually supposed to make it. Multiple leaders had relevant context and multiple teams had a stake in the outcome. And the operating model had never clearly defined where that category of decision was supposed to land. So it circulated, meetings were held, analysis was done, and the decision came back every two weeks in a slightly different form. The cost was not obvious from the outside, and it showed up as a project that could not move, a team that could not plan, and a leadership conversation that kept getting heavier. What broke the cycle was not a breakthrough insight. It was a decision rights framework, a simple map of which decisions belonged at which level, with clear criteria for escalation versus resolution. Once ownership was defined, the decision was made in three days. The 47 days before that were not wasted because of a lack of intelligence or effort. They were wasted because the operating infrastructure did not exist to resolve it. That kind of gap is quiet, persistent, and very expensive. And it almost never shows up on anyone's dashboard. #StrategyAndOperations #ChiefOfStaff #Leadership #Execution #DecisionMaking