Interrogations
Why the longest delay in the company has no author
Two directors, each certain the next move belongs to the other, each correct.
A handoff described as almost ready for three consecutive months.
A decision that has never been refused and has never been taken.
Where, in any of the three, is the refusal a governance process could act on?
The pattern
Each side has declared itself available, in writing, and means it. The moment the other moves, it will respond. Both are waiting on the same reasoning, and neither has done anything that could be called inaction.
The room discusses everything else. Context, framing, constraints, what everyone already understands. The one coordinate that determines whether anything happens — which side moves — is the only one that never reaches the agenda. And the more people are in the room, the more certain each of them is that somebody better positioned will raise it.
Two reasonable parties produce this delay together. Calling it conflict is how it survives.
The cost
- No record — no refusal, no decision, nothing for a review to find
- Escalation-proof — the mechanisms exist to break refusals, and there is no refusal
- Both sides confident — each reports itself ready, and each is telling the truth
- Diffused arithmetic — the more people present, the lower the odds that any one of them moves
- Rising price — the longer it holds, the more it costs to be the one who goes first
The question is not who is holding it up. It is who was ever told, by name, that the first move was theirs.
The path
Take the three slowest items on your list. For each, answer one question without consulting anyone: whose move is it, right now, by name? Wherever the answer takes longer than a second, the delay has just been located.
Two reasonable parties can hold a decision still for a year. Neither will appear in the postmortem.
Direction is not agreed. It is assigned, or it is absent.