Sands Identifies Decision Confusion as a Major Drag on Corporate Execution

In a recent LinkedIn post, Sands highlights a common yet often overlooked impediment to organizational efficiency: the over-involvement of senior leadership in minor decisions. According to Sands, this practice, termed ‘decision confusion,’ significantly slows down execution and makes the decision-making process ’emotionally expensive’ for employees.

Sands argues that high-performing organizations distinguish themselves through clear ownership of decisions. However, many companies fail to define these boundaries, leading to predictable negative patterns. “So people default to one of four patterns: → Over-escalation → Duplicate work → Ownership avoidance → Decision paralysis,” Sands explains.

The Cost of Unclear Decision Authority

The core of the problem, as outlined by Sands, is that when authority is ambiguous, individuals tend to err on the side of caution, often by escalating decisions unnecessarily. This default to safety, while understandable, creates a bottleneck. “When authority is unclear, people default to safety through escalation,” Sands writes. This leads to senior leaders being overloaded with ‘leaf decisions’ – small, reversible choices that should ideally be made by those closest to the work.

A Framework for Distributing Clarity

To combat this pervasive issue, Sands proposes a structured approach, emphasizing the importance of frameworks like the Decision Tree. He outlines four distinct levels of decision-making designed to clarify ownership and empower teams:

• Leaf decisions: Small, reversible choices made close to the work, such as customer fixes or scheduling adjustments.
• Branch decisions: Impact a single team or function, like hiring choices or roadmap tradeoffs.
• Trunk decisions: Affect multiple teams or company priorities, involving major investments or reorgs.
• Root decisions: Shape the company’s identity, direction, and long-term risk, including vision, values, and market positioning.

Sands posits that much of the friction experienced within organizations stems from this lack of clarity. “A lot of organizational friction is actually decision confusion,” he states. When decision-making authority is not clearly delineated, teams become hesitant, unsure of their operational boundaries. This uncertainty prevents efficient action and ultimately impedes the company’s ability to scale effectively.

Empowering Scale Through Distributed Clarity

The solution, according to Sands, lies not in increasing executive oversight, but in building robust systems that enable sound decision-making at all organizational levels. “The best leaders don’t make every decision. They build systems that make good decisions possible at every level of the organization,” Sands contends. He concludes that true scale is achieved through the distribution of clarity, enabling each part of the organization to operate with defined authority and purpose.