1.1 — The Anatomy of Poor Decisions
The four patterns of decision failure — misframing, hidden assumptions, buried tradeoffs, unclear handoff — and why leaders misdiagnose them as execution problems.
Domain 1: Decision Quality · Intro · 15–20 min
What this covers
Most organizations trace execution problems to execution teams. This course examines where those problems actually begin: in the formation of the decision, before any execution starts.
Learning objectives:
- Recognize when a decision "feels done" but is structurally unresolved
- Understand the four patterns of decision failure
- See how execution teams inherit ambiguity, not clarity
- Connect formation failures to what leaders call "execution problems"
The four failure patterns
Pattern 1 — The misframed question. The team solved for the wrong problem. The question was never explicitly stated; the answer was optimized for an assumption nobody tested.
Pattern 2 — Hidden assumptions. Critical constraints stayed implicit. They surface mid-execution, when redeployment is costly.
Pattern 3 — Buried tradeoffs. Parties agreed on direction but not on what was sacrificed. Execution later discovers the tradeoff and contests the original commitment.
Pattern 4 — Unclear handoff. Execution received a narrative — a slide deck, a memo, a summary. What it needed was structure: the question, the constraints, the alternatives considered, the risks accepted.
Why leaders misdiagnose this
Organizations attribute execution friction to execution teams. The deeper pattern: poor formation is inherited as ambiguity, and ambiguity slows execution without ever appearing on the formation team's radar.
The cost is spread: delayed projects, rework, governance friction, quiet resistance. None of it traces back to the IC meeting where the decision structure was incomplete.
Next in Domain 1: Decision Debt: The Hidden Tax