Nobody's Call

Two functions keep colliding, the work keeps slipping, so we get everyone in a room more often. More meetings, more alignment. It feels like leadership. Mostly it is motion, and it is expensive.

This issue separates being heard from getting to decide. It shows why more collaboration rarely fixes cross-functional friction, because the thing that was missing was never conversation. What is missing is a name: one person who owns the outcome and decides when the room cannot agree. Everyone else gets a voice, and a voice is not a vote.

• Why nearly three-quarters of cross-functional teams miss their own targets, and why more meetings make it worse (HBR).
• The difference between a voice and a vote, and the single role most stuck decisions are missing.
• A first move you can make this week: put one name on each of your three worst recurring fights.