Ask ten people in your organization who decides pricing exceptions, or new hires, or which projects jump the queue, and count the different answers. In most organizations I assess, the count is embarrassing, and the cost is enormous and invisible.
Unclear decision rights tax an organization three ways. Speed. Decisions float upward by default, queueing behind an executive’s calendar, because no one below is certain they are allowed. Quality. Decisions get made far from the information, by the most senior person rather than the best-placed one. Accountability. When everyone was consulted and no one decided, outcomes are orphans. Success has many parents; failure has a committee.
The repair is not a complicated framework. It is a one-page decision charter answering, for each recurring significant decision. Who decides, who must be consulted first, who is informed after, and what boundaries apply, spending limits, policy constraints, escalation triggers. The discipline is in the singular. Who decides is one name. The moment two names share a decision, you have not assigned it, you have scheduled a negotiation.
Two placements matter more than the rest. Push decisions to the edge of competence, not comfort. The person closest to the information, with the boundary set wide enough to matter. Leaders who hoard decisions produce slow organizations and undeveloped successors, and the hoarding is usually loss-aversion wearing a responsibility costume.
Reserve the board’s short list explicitly. Strategy, major commitments, CEO matters, policy. Everything else belongs below, on purpose, in writing.
Revisit the charter annually. Growth moves the right answers. The organizations that scale gracefully are the ones where authority moves on schedule instead of by crisis.
Mel Meier, DBA is an applied social scientist and the founder of iB Consulting USA, a woman owned, WOSB certified advisory firm. She serves boards, associations, and executive teams through board advisory, organizational diagnostics, speaking engagements in the United States and internationally, and organizational assessments.
