Decision rights are an operating design issue, not a communication issue

Many organizations still respond to decision confusion with a RACI, a town hall or a leadership offsite. I would be more careful. When decision rights stay unclear, the issue is often not missing documentation. The work, the authority and the accountability model no longer fit each other.

You can usually see that in the operating pattern. Decisions bounce upward, stall across functions or get reopened after the fact. Better decision-making training may help at the margin, but it will not fix a structure where authority is ambiguous, incentives conflict or managers are carrying decisions that should sit elsewhere.

Deloitte Insights makes the same core point from an organization design angle. It says many organizations struggle to articulate decision-making accountabilities and processes. It also reports that organizations with high organization design maturity had 23 percent greater revenue growth over three years than those with low maturity, and it places decision rights within that broader maturity picture. That does not prove that clarifying decision rights by itself caused the growth difference. It does show where this issue belongs.

Before approving decision-making development, I would want the failing business decision named, along with who owns it now, what gets escalated and what happens when the wrong person decides or no one decides. If those basics are still unclear, the work sits first with the leaders who own how the business runs. That usually points to the CHRO or COO, because the problem is role design, authority and accountability across the work, with L&D supporting the redesign rather than leading it.

I would begin with one recurring decision that affects delivery, risk or customer response. Then look at who recommends it, who decides it, who can override it and who carries the downstream accountability. From there, the useful questions are whether the decision sits at the right level, whether managers are absorbing exceptions the system should handle, and whether the current process improves quality enough to justify the delay it creates.

That gives leaders a better funding test. If the role, authority and escalation path are wrong, training adds activity without removing the execution constraint. The first move is to redesign the work. Capability building belongs where the redesigned role actually requires stronger judgment.

Deloitte's article does not provide specific case studies or long-term outcome evidence for implementing decision-rights frameworks. Resistance is real too, especially where clearer rights would reduce executive discretion or expose weak accountability. So I would not treat this as proof that every organization needs a decision-rights program.