Christian Ullrich
January 2026
This document argues that most organizational failures stem from decision avoidance rather than a lack of skill or effort and asserts that restoring execution requires making decisions explicit, owned, and binding. It describes how avoidance cultures replace choice with activity, process, and ambiguity, producing delay, rework, and political behavior that feels safe in the short term but destroys momentum over time. The doctrine defines what a real decision is by requiring explicit statements of action, rationale, rejected alternatives, accepted trade-offs, and a single accountable owner, and it explains why decisions necessarily create loss, enemies, and the need for submission after the choice. It contrasts makers, who value commitment and execution, with politicians, who rely on ambiguity and alignment, and states that the doctrine intentionally shifts power toward those who can decide and deliver. The document claims that decision clarity collapses wasteful coordination, accelerates execution, sharpens debate, and exposes real conflict without eliminating necessary politics. It concludes that accepting the doctrine is itself a binding decision that reshapes leadership behavior, incentives, and organizational power in favor of progress over comfort.
Most organizational failures do not stem from incompetence, poor effort, or missing information. It comes from the refusal to decide. People keep work in motion while keeping commitment out of reach. They replace choice with activity and treat that replacement as professionalism.
Decision avoidance produces a distinctive kind of organization. It runs on meetings that do not close anything, documents that do not bind anyone, and language designed to preserve optionality. Teams discuss what to do, then discuss what the discussion meant, then schedule another discussion to reconcile conflicting interpretations. Work feels busy and slow at the same time. The organization develops a theater of progress where coordination substitutes for direction.
You can see avoidance early. The agenda repeats. The same question returns with new packaging. Analysis grows while commitment stays flat. People ask for more research when they already have enough to choose from. Slides become more visual as accountability disappears. Leaders narrate situations, summarize opinions, and map stakeholders, but they do not state what will happen next and who will carry the downside. The group leaves with shared sentiment and no binding trade.
In an avoidance culture, documents and rituals substitute for decisions. Reviews, steering meetings, and approval chains create the appearance of governance while protecting every participant from ownership. People treat the process as the thing they ship. They rely on verbal agreement because it leaves room for later denial. They write prose that hides their commitment, so readers must infer what was decided. They describe direction without stating the alternative that was lost. They promise upside without admitting what the organization will stop doing, delay, or degrade as a consequence. These artifacts keep everyone involved and hold no one accountable.
Organizations reward this behavior because it protects careers. A clear decision creates winners and losers, exposes trade-offs, and assigns blame if the outcome fails. A non-decision preserves relationships and status while keeping paths open. Senior leaders often face a fundamental asymmetry: a visible wrong call costs more than an invisible delay. Delay also keeps headcount and managerial relevance intact because continuous alignment creates continuous work for those who manage alignment. In that environment, avoidance looks rational even when it destroys execution.
The cost arrives later and is charged with interest. Projects stall, then restart under pressure. The organization makes choices one at a time, too late, and without the information it could have gathered over time. Stakeholders who appeared aligned discover they never agreed, and they reopen the topic in the middle of delivery. Schedules slip because teams did not plan for renegotiation, and renegotiation becomes the default mode. People learn cynicism as a survival skill because seriousness without authority becomes humiliation.
Most organizational problems persist because decisions remain unclear, unowned, or reversible by drift. When decisions become explicit, owned, and binding, a large class of recurring issues disappears without additional process, tooling, or cultural programs. The organization does not need to work harder or smarter. It needs to decide.
Clear decisions collapse entire layers of unproductive activity. Meetings lose their central role because they no longer serve as substitutes for commitment. Discussion narrows to the content of the decision and ends once the decision exists. Projects start earlier because teams do not wait for alignment that never arrives. Execution no longer pauses for reinterpretation or renegotiation because the commitment already settled those questions. What looked like coordination problems turn out to be decision failures and vanish once the decision is made.
Execution speed increases immediately. Work flows because dependencies are resolved in advance rather than surfacing mid-project. Teams stop interrupting each other to revisit settled topics. Leaders spend less time managing disagreement and more time removing obstacles to delivery. Even complex initiatives move faster because the organization handles trade-offs upfront rather than discovering them under pressure. Fewer meetings produce more output, not because meetings are bad, but because decisions no longer require repetition to stay alive.
Decision clarity also changes behavior. Political maneuvering loses its payoff once ownership and consequences become visible. People who want to build things gain influence because progress depends on commitment, not persuasion. Leaders appear more useful because they close questions rather than host them. Employees who want to execute experience less frustration because they no longer wait for permission disguised as consensus. Morale improves not through comfort, but through momentum.
Not all problems disappear. Clear decisions expose real disagreement instead of hiding it. Content debates become sharper because participants must argue for and against alternatives rather than simply for or against preferences and narratives. Cross-functional work remains difficult because functions speak different languages and pursue different goals. Managers remain necessary because organizations still need coordination, escalation, and judgment. Decision clarity does not remove work. It removes waste.
The effects extend beyond individual projects. Project timelines shorten because renegotiation no longer sits outside the plan. Meeting load drops and stays low because decisions do not decay. Costs tied to time decline as execution accelerates. Capacity frees up for more initiatives, including innovation, because the organization spends less energy maintaining ambiguity. These changes show up in metrics even when no one sets out to optimize them.
Decision-making does not solve every organizational failure, but it solves the most common one. When decisions work, many other systems begin to work without intervention. When decisions fail, no reminder, process, or framework compensates. Fixing decisions does not guarantee success, but without it, success remains accidental.
This doctrine draws a clear boundary. It addresses people who want work to move forward through decisions and execution. It does not address those who rely on discussion, alignment, and maneuvering as their primary contribution. The distinction is behavioral, not hierarchical. It cuts across roles, seniority, and titles.
Makers define themselves by output. They want decisions because decisions unlock work. They accept conflict, loss, and responsibility as part of progress. They argue about approaches, choose one, and move on. They measure success by what exists and what ships. When decision-making becomes clearer, makers gain leverage because their ability to act finally matters.
Politicians define themselves by influence. They thrive in ambiguity because ambiguity preserves optionality and status. They prefer conversation to commitment and framing to choice. They resist explicit decisions because explicit decisions expose trade-offs, create losers, and assign ownership. Improved decision-making threatens their relevance because it removes the need for continuous alignment and mediation.
This doctrine does not claim that politics can be eliminated. Every organization needs some politics to reconcile conflicting interests and to operate across functions. The issue is not the existence of politics, but its dominance. When politics replaces decisions, the organization stops executing. When decisions constrain politics, the organization regains momentum.
Resistance to this doctrine is predictable. Those who depend on politics will challenge the premise, question the applicability, and demand discussion about how to decide before allowing any decision to exist. They will argue that their organization is special, that alignment is required, or that clarity would be irresponsible. These objections protect a way of working, not the work itself.
Applying this doctrine changes power dynamics. People who cannot justify themselves without politics either adapt or lose influence. Some leaders and contributors shift from political behavior to making behavior when the rules change. Others self-select out, regardless of title. This sorting effect is intentional. The doctrine does not aim to include everyone. It aims to make execution possible.
The doctrine asks each reader to choose. You cannot partially accept it. You either want decisions to bind, or you want discussion to continue. You either accept ownership and downside, or you optimize for safety and flexibility. Organizations face the same choice. They can protect political structures or prioritize progress. This doctrine exists for those who choose progress.
A decision exists only when it is explicit. Anything that requires interpretation, reconstruction, or memory is not a decision. It is an intention, a preference, or a discussion outcome. Organizations that treat implicit choices as decisions accumulate confusion and rework while believing they are aligned.
An explicit decision states four elements without ambiguity. It names what the organization will do. It explains why this option wins. It identifies at least one credible alternative that the organization will not pursue. It states the downside that the organization accepts as a consequence. If any of these elements are missing, the decision does not exist. Optimism without cost is not a decision. Direction without exclusion is not a decision.
Explicit decisions do not hide in prose or slides. They do not require the reader to infer meaning from diagrams or tone. They stand on their own and remain readable months later by people who were not present. Presentation, analysis, and narrative may surround a decision, but they never substitute for it. When a document forces the reader to search for what was decided, the organization has avoided making a decision.
Specificity matters more than elegance. A decision must be clear enough that reasonable opponents can recognize that they lost. Decisions without opponents may still be helpful clarifications, but they do not carry the force of real choice. Real decisions create disagreement because they close paths. That closure is the point.
Once decisions become explicit, meetings and reviews change shape. Discussion focuses on the decision itself rather than on background explanation. Approvals collapse into a small number of direct questions about trade-offs and consequences. Repeated meetings disappear because the decision persists after the meeting ends. Change discussions move to the end of the process and occur only when a new decision is required.
Treating implicit choices as decisions causes harm. Stakeholders discover late that they never agreed. New participants reopen settled topics because nothing binds them. Projects absorb the cost through delay and rework. None of this results from evil intent. It results from the absence of explicit commitment.
There are a few real constraints on explicitness. When a topic becomes too detailed, it requires more decisions, not vaguer ones. Existing culture may resist this standard, but culture does not prevent writing. Writing exposes whether a decision exists and forces avoidance to surface.
The practical enforcement is non-negotiable and straightforward. Write decisions down. Do it in every meeting where a decision is expected. When questions arise, answer them with additional decisions. Maintain a list people can reference instead of having to remember. Remove decisions from that list only when everyone agrees they carry no remaining controversy and no future risk. Until then, explicit decisions remain the only reliable unit of organizational progress.
A decision without a trade-off is not a decision. It is a wish. Organizations routinely announce direction while hiding what they give up, delay, or degrade in the process. This avoidance protects comfort in the moment and destroys execution later.
Real decisions force exclusion. Choosing one path means rejecting another credible path and accepting the cost of that rejection. When documents describe only benefits, they signal that the organization has not decided. Upside-only statements invite later resistance because the downside still exists and will surface under pressure, usually at the worst possible time.
Trade-offs must hurt. If no one feels loss, the choice did not close anything meaningful. Teams often postpone naming trade-offs because naming them triggers a real argument. That argument is the work. When trade-offs remain implicit, discussion drifts into explanation and justification instead of confrontation and choice. The organization appears calm while storing conflict for later.
Execution fails when downsides have no owner. People reopen topics once the cost becomes visible. Support evaporates because consent was never informed. What looked like alignment collapses into renegotiation. This failure mode does not come from bad faith. It comes from decisions that asked for commitment without honesty.
Stated trade-offs change behavior immediately. Stakeholders argue over substance rather than framing. They weigh constraints against each other and see how individual decisions interact. They recognize cumulative cost across many choices and adjust before overload occurs. Discussion becomes sharper, more direct, and more efficient because it aims at resolution rather than avoidance.
Most trade-offs cluster around a small set of constraints. Time, money, scope, quality, and risk compete in every project. Complex initiatives contain many such decisions, not one. Making trade-offs visible at each step prevents the organization from drifting into an impossible combination of promises.
Resistance increases when downsides appear in writing. That reaction is expected. People who avoided the decision now understand the consequences. Some will attempt to delay, soften language, or replace clarity with vague compromise. These moves signal that the trade-off matters and that the decision is real.
Trade-offs must remain visible over time. Writing them next to the decision keeps future readers honest about what the organization accepted. When circumstances change, the organization can revisit the decision based on facts rather than surprise. Hiding trade-offs delays pain. Stating them creates progress.
Every real decision has one owner. That person makes the call and carries the consequences. Shared ownership is a contradiction. When everyone owns a decision, no one does, and execution collapses under ambiguity.
Single ownership does not exclude participation. Many people may contribute analysis, argue alternatives, or oppose the outcome. The owner listens, decides, and commits. The distinction matters because responsibility without authority is theater and authority without responsibility is abuse. A decision without a named owner fails both tests.
Ownership must be explicit and written. A documented decision without an owner signals avoidance, but it still marks progress. An undocumented decision is a stronger failure because it erases accountability. Writing the owner next to the decision anchors future discussion and prevents drift.
Diffuse ownership appears most often in cross-functional work. Multiple teams, goals, and incentives invite political compromise in place of choice. Organizations treat collective agreements as safety and confuse them with responsibility. The result is slow escalation, endless alignment, and decisions that unravel under pressure.
Single ownership changes conflict dynamics. The owner absorbs risk on behalf of the group and can therefore close the debate. By accepting the downside personally, the owner buys speed for the organization. This act often feels uncomfortable because modern organizations punish failure more than they reward success. Yet without this risk transfer, decisions stall indefinitely.
Alignment without ownership fails in execution. People agree in principle and defect in practice because no one carries the cost. Disagree and commit works only when someone else owns the decision. Without ownership, disagreement never ends, and commitment never starts.
Constraints on ownership are mainly cultural. Organizations prefer harmony over accountability and distribute responsibility to avoid blame. This choice does not remove risk. It spreads invisibly until it becomes unmanageable. Assigning an owner makes risk visible and therefore actionable.
Stakeholders participate by advising, supporting, or opposing, not by co-owning. They may record objections, signal disagreement, or commit despite loss. The owner remains accountable regardless of consensus. Under pressure, leaders must reaffirm ownership rather than reopen decisions. Decision clarity depends on this discipline.
Every real decision creates winners and losers. Organizations often deny this fact and pay for the denial later. When leaders pretend that a choice benefits everyone, they erase loss rather than manage it. The loss persists and manifests as resistance, delay, or retaliation.
Teams react predictably when they sense that a decision will create losers. They soften language, dilute scope, or postpone the choice entirely. They search for a compromise that avoids naming loss rather than accepting it. These moves feel humane but function as avoidance. They keep the conflict alive and unresolved.
Losers respond politically when their loss remains unnamed. Some withdraw support. Some reopen the topic through side channels. Some wait for an opportunity to reverse the outcome. This behavior is not a personal failure. It is structural. People protect their status and resources when they feel taken from without recognition.
Naming loss changes the game. When a decision openly acknowledges who loses and why, resistance becomes manageable. People can trade their losses, convert them into future claims, or frame them as contributions to a larger agreement. Transparency turns hidden enemies into visible stakeholders who can be dealt with directly.
Appeasement fails where recognition works. Telling people that they did not lose anything insults their intelligence and increases resentment. Deals outperform appeasement because deals treat decisions as a package rather than as isolated events. Individual choices may be zero-sum, but agreements across multiple decisions can create a net gain.
Leaders avoid enemy creation when they misunderstand power and politics. They treat each decision as a moral exercise instead of as part of a broader exchange. They negotiate endlessly on single points instead of assembling balanced agreements. This behavior signals weakness and invites further challenge.
Creating enemies is not a failure condition. It is often a requirement for progress. The discipline lies in making enemies visible, not in pretending they do not exist. When loss is acknowledged and integrated into an agreement, decisions become faster, more durable, and easier to execute.
A decision ends debate and starts execution. Without submission, a decision has no force and no value. Organizations often tolerate continued resistance after a choice, then act surprised when execution fails. This tolerance destroys authority and turns every decision into a suggestion.
Submission shows through behavior, not agreement. People may disagree during decision-making, but once a decision is made, they publicly support it and fully execute it. They stop arguing the case they lost. They align their teams behind the outcome and communicate their commitment even when the decision conflicts with their preferences. This discipline preserves speed and coherence.
The distinction between disagreement and resistance is temporal. Disagreement belongs before the decision. Resistance after the decision is an execution failure. Ongoing objections drain energy, confuse subordinates, and invite the reopening of settled questions. Leaders who allow this behavior teach the organization that decisions do not bind.
Submission depends on authority and culture. Decision ownership creates the right to close debate. Leaders enforce submission by modeling it themselves, including submitting to decisions made above them. Communicating one’s own submission is a leadership act. It signals to others that execution matters more than ego.
Refusal to submit at senior levels signals organizational breakdown. When leaders openly resist decisions, initiatives stall permanently. If this pattern persists, the organization cannot execute and loses legitimacy. Addressing this behavior is an executive responsibility, not a facilitation problem.
Submission does not mean permanence. Reversing a decision requires another decision. Valid reversal triggers come from changed facts, broken assumptions, missed thresholds, or external constraints. Discomfort, regret, or renewed opposition do not qualify. Reversal authority belongs to the original owner or a clearly superior role and must be documented as a reversal, not disguised as clarification.
Fast reversals signal strength. Endless reconsideration signals fear. Once a decision is reversed, the submission applies again. The organization executes the new decision without reopening the old fight. Submission is not obedience to people. It is a commitment to the integrity of decision-making.
Accepting this doctrine is itself a decision. It binds the organization to a different standard of behavior, making it impossible to sustain specific patterns. Partial adoption does not work. Either decisions bind and execute, or the doctrine does not exist.
The immediate cost is exposure. Decisions become traceable to owners. Failures become visible and attributable. Comfort, deniability, and reputation management lose priority. Some people lose influence because their value depended on ambiguity and alignment work. Others gain influence because progress now depends on commitment and execution. Careers change direction. Some accelerate. Some stall.
Existing practices stop working. Endless discussion, consensus theater, and informal alignment lose legitimacy. Frameworks, processes, and methodologies can no longer delay or replace decisions. Committees may advise, but cannot own outcomes. Roadmaps, plans, and OKRs become outputs of decisions rather than tools to avoid them. When a process conflicts with a decision, the decision wins unless law or fiduciary duty intervenes.
Leaders take on new responsibilities. They must own the downside without deflection and enforce submission after decisions. They must decide whether they want to act as makers or remain politicians. They must protect decision clarity even when it creates conflict, discomfort, or personal risk. Leadership shifts from facilitation to commitment.
This doctrine reshapes hiring, promotion, and staffing. Decision-making becomes a core competence, not a soft skill. Organizations that apply the doctrine must select for people who can make choices, argue trade-offs, and execute under loss. Those unwilling to accept these conditions should opt out early rather than undermine the system later.
The doctrine does not eliminate politics. It constrains it. Politics moves from covert resistance to explicit negotiation around decisions and agreements. Where authority exists, the doctrine sharpens it. It does not democratize decision-making. Cross-functional processes remain, but they do not imply shared ownership. Escalation replaces alignment when authority is unclear.
The doctrine is falsifiable. If decisions become explicit but execution does not accelerate, the result is failure. If meetings decrease without a corresponding increase in decisions, it fails. If ownership exists on paper but consequences remain shared, it fails. If decisions reopen informally, there is no submission. If politicians gain influence after adoption, the doctrine was not applied.
Accepting this doctrine prioritizes progress over comfort. It values deciding over waiting for certainty. It treats ownership as carrying downside, not sharing blame. It requires submission after choice and honesty about loss. Some people will reject these conditions. The organization must decide whether to protect them or move forward.