-
Agents Are Not Employees — Rethinking AI Governance
3–4 minutesEvery organization I have worked for has delegated decision making down to myself and others. No one walked in with full authority and accountability. We were given a defined responsibility, a set of boundaries, and gradually gained more autonomy and agency over time. We do the same with those that we hire. We accumulate evidence…
Tags: Trust -
Everyone Has Agreed … to a Different Definition of Success
2–4 minutesIf you are like me, you have sat through project kickoffs where everyone nods along in agreement about what is about to happen. There is a somewhat defined business problem. A team has been formed, maybe vendors are involved, and everyone leaves the room feeling like they know what they are supposed to do. Everything…
Tags: Clarity -
The Hidden Cost in the Way We Work
2–3 minutesThe team is ready to work but cannot proceed. Something is standing in their way: a security review, an architecture decision, information from another team, or an answer from someone out of the office. The answer might only take an hour. Getting to it might take several days. I’ve seen this happen often enough that…
Tags: Complexity -
Is Your Governance Merely Assurance?
2–3 minutesFor the past decade of my career, I have sat in on more than my fair share of vendor evaluations. I recall during one of these evaluations something didn’t look right to me. I asked the presenter to repeat part of the demo with slightly different input. This uncovered the fact that he had been…
Tags: Value -
When Process Intent Changes, Are You Pivoting or Drifting?
2–3 minutesWhen a process changes, is the intent changing—or getting lost? Not every process change is a pivot. Some are drift.
Tags: Process Intent -
When the Process Lost Its Intent, It Lost Its Why
3–4 minutesProcess drift isn’t always a result of the organization forgetting why it existed.
Tags: Process Intent -
When Doing Things Right Gets in the Way
2–3 minutesWhen controls accumulate friction until the process becomes an obstacle to the work it was meant to support people may signal that the process has friction more than the risk justifies.
Tags: Process Intent -
The Hidden Cost of Alignment
3–4 minutesAlignment can create confidence before shared understanding exists. When teams interpret the same objective differently, execution exposes the gap through competing priorities and fragmented capacity.
Tags: Clarity -
Every Approval Hides a Decision Right
3–5 minutesApproval bottlenecks aren’t just process problems. They’re evidence of where your organization has chosen to keep authority.
Tags: Complexity -
You Can’t Own What You Can’t Decide
4–6 minutesYou cannot fully own an outcome if you do not have the authority to make the decisions that materially determine it.
Tags: Trust