3) The decison rights gap-The team that could not execute

A VP commented: "We spent 18 months thinking we had an execution problem. Turned out we had a decision rights problem."

His GM could identify the constraint. His department heads were capable.

But when their KPIs conflicted—which happened daily—there was no clear call on who decided what gave way.

So everyone optimised locally and hoped the system would sort itself out.

From the portfolio level, it looked like the usual suspects:

Variability.

Departments not collaborating.

The kind of problems you throw more discipline at.

But discipline wasn't the gap. Clarity was.

Once he made one thing explicit—constraint protection takes priority when metrics conflict—the site stabilised in 12 weeks.

Same people. Same equipment. Just less ambiguity about who calls it when things pull in different directions.

The teams didn't need more empowerment within their domains.

They needed an answer to the question their KPI structure left open: what happens when our domains intersect?

Have you ever watched a capable team underperform — and known the issue wasn't the team?