In small teams, decisions have a home. A name. A person. But as organizations grow, decisions start to wander.

Suddenly, a simple “yes” or “no” turns into a committee. Then a meeting. Then three meetings. Then a spreadsheet, a survey, a debate, and a follow-up thread “for alignment.”

All for something one trusted person could have resolved in an afternoon.

The irony is that no one chooses this. It happens slowly, almost politely. “We should get more data.” “We should loop in a few more people.” “We should wait to make sure everyone’s comfortable.”

But comfort is a costly substitute for clarity.

When a decision doesn’t have a clear owner, the work expands to fill the vacuum.

And that’s how organizations lose their edge. Not through bad calls, but through no calls at all.

The cure is simple but not easy: every project needs one accountable decider. Not a tyrant or a bottleneck. Just someone who gathers input, weighs it, and chooses. Someone whose name is on the hook.

Because when everyone is responsible, no one is.