In business, security is often measured by the number of rules, checkpoints, and signatures required to get something started. It is believed that every new step in the procedure reduces the possibility of error.
Sometimes, however, the opposite is true.
The more hands a decision passes through, the harder it is to determine who actually made it. Responsibility gets diluted until no one feels it’s theirs. In the end, everyone is involved, but no one made the decision.
Such organizations rarely lack an explanation. There is always a regulation that had to be followed, an approval that never came through, or a meeting that should have been held. The system has flawlessly documented its own inertia.
Procedures are useful so long as they help people act. The moment they become a shield against consequences, they no longer protect the company; they protect indecision. Leadership, therefore, does not begin where risk disappears. It begins where a decision once again has an author.
A company’s biggest problem isn’t that someone might make the wrong decision. Far more dangerous is an organization where it has become impossible to determine who decided to do nothing.
Which is costlier for a company today: a wrong decision or perfectly justified indecision?
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