The short version
Most slow organizations aren't lazy. They just can't tell you who decides, so everything routes through consensus.
Ask five people in a stalled project who makes the final call. If you get five answers, you have found the bottleneck, and it isn't anyone's work ethic.
What ambiguity actually costs
- Meeting sprawl: unclear deciders get resolved by inviting more people.
- Reversals: decisions made without the real decider get unmade weeks later.
- Quiet disengagement: strong people stop proposing things they can't get approved.
Write it on one page
For your ten most frequent recurring decisions, name the decider, the people who must be consulted, and the deadline for objections. That's it. One page, reviewed quarterly.
Consensus is a great way to build commitment and a terrible way to build speed. Pick per decision, not per company.
The objection window
The reason people resist a single decider is fear of being ignored. Fix that with a time-boxed objection window: anyone can push back before the deadline, the decider must respond in writing, and after that the decision stands until new information appears.
Speed comes from clarity about who decides, not from caring less about what people think.
Related resource
Team Norms Template
A one-page template for writing down how your team meets, decides, and disagrees — then reviewing it every quarter.
Get the Team Norms Template