Who really has the right to decide?
The blind spot in executive committee governance

Many executive committees believe they've settled the question of decision-making once they've handed out an org chart and a responsibility matrix. Recent research published in Harvard Business Review shows that's rarely enough — and identifies why the right people often don't actually hold the power to decide.

A role on paper is not real power

Most organisations we work with already have a document spelling out "who decides what" — a RACI matrix, a delegation sheet, a governance charter. The problem is almost never the absence of that document. It's the gap between what it says and what actually happens in the room.

What separates an organisation that decides fast from one that decides slowly isn't how detailed its governance framework is. It's how clearly — and how consistently in practice — the decision rights attached to it are actually respected.

4 mistakes that sabotage decision governance

1. Setting roles before clarifying the goal

Assigning "who decides" before everyone agrees on "what are we trying to achieve" produces poorly calibrated roles from the start — the right decision-maker for one goal isn't always the right one for another.

2. Treating decisions as a fixed list

A governance document written once by a single senior leader, and never revisited, ages badly. Roles should be co-created with the people involved in the decision, and updated as the organisation changes.

3. Confusing deciding, being consulted, and being informed

Without a clear definition of what each role actually means, everyone assumes they have more — or less — power than they really do. That ambiguity isn't neutral: it slows people down through excess caution, or produces decisions made without the right people in the loop.

4. Letting hierarchy override assigned roles

A manager formally mandated to decide loses all real authority if their superior keeps stepping back in on the same topic. Over time, nobody makes a decision without informal sign-off — and the decision right becomes a fiction.

The question executive committees should be asking

Not just: "Who is officially responsible for this decision?"

But rather: "Does this decision actually stay in the hands of the person it was assigned to — or does it escalate higher than intended, more often than not?"