Businesses
Faster Decisions Without More Coordination
When strategic decisions take too long and keep getting revisited, the bottleneck is rarely competence. It's missing standards:
clear decision rights, binding meeting standards and decision protocols that people actually use day to day.
I build decision-making systems that make visible where decisions stall and restore accountability where it's lacking.
Decision cycle time ↓ · Rework ↓ · Strategic risk ↓
Jump to:
Problem + Outcome
Where it usually goes wrong
→ Decisions get stuck in coordination loops
→ Meetings build shared understanding but produce no actual decision
→ Ownership is assumed rather than assigned
→ Criteria shift depending on who's in the room or how much pressure there is
→ Decisions aren't documented in a way that holds, so they get revisited
What's missing isn't will. It's a structure that carries.
What a decision-making system changes
→ Faster decisions (clear rights)
→ More consistent decisions (stable criteria)
→ Faster execution (documented, ready to act on)
→ Less rework (ambiguity caught early)
→ Less decision fatigue (a clear process under pressure)
→ More confidence in prioritisation and leadership (transparency)
Measured via selected KPIs such as decision cycle time, escalation rate, rework and meeting time per decision.
Consulting Process
The Starting Point: Decision Audit
Where are your decisions really getting stuck?
The Decision Audit clarifies three things:
Which decisions are genuinely costly (and where activity is just happening without progress)
Why decisions stall (rights, standards, meeting logic, interfaces)
Which 2–3 standards will have the greatest immediate impact (on speed and quality)
What you get (Core):
→ Bottleneck Analysis Top bottlenecks, prioritised by impact
→ Decision Flow Overview 1–2 critical decision types mapped as a clear current-state process
→ 30–60–90 Day Development Plan Immediate relief vs. structural change, in a sensible sequence
→ Executive Briefing (60–90 min) Findings, recommendations, next steps
→ Pilot Standard One ready-to-use standard (meeting, protocol or decision right)
Optional Add-ons:
→ Decision Rights Matrix
→ Decision Log (template)
→ Meeting standards for 2–4 core meeting types
→ Executive onboarding and implementation (short applied session)
→ Pilot accompaniment (2–4 weeks)
Outcome: You know exactly where to focus, what will work first and how it gets implemented in practice.
A good fit when decisions cut across teams and coordination or rework is eating into time in a noticeable way.
Measurement: Progress made visible via selected KPIs such as decision cycle time, escalation rate, rework and meeting time per decision.
Process: 3–6 interviews (45 min) + analysis + executive briefing
Duration: 1–2 weeks
Investment: from €3,900 (depending on scope, team size and decision types)
Why I don't offer a money-back guarantee
The Decision Audit is not an off-the-shelf product. I invest time, analysis and judgement upfront. What you receive is a concrete diagnosis of your actual decision bottlenecks, not a generic framework.
That's why we use the discovery call to assess together whether an audit is the right lever for you. If the fit isn't there, I'll say so beforehand, not after.
That's my guarantee: you only pay when I'm confident the audit will deliver concrete value for you.
(You'll hear back within 48 hours with 2–3 suggested time slots.)
After the Audit:
Two Paths
Implementation & Long-Term Support
1) Implementation (6–10 weeks)
We build standards, decision rights and protocols so that they work across teams, pilot in 1–2 teams and roll out incrementally.
Typical building blocks
→ Decision Rights Matrix
→ Meeting standards for core meeting types
→ Decision log + decision protocols
→ Escalation logic
→ Pilot + rollout in 1–2 teams
→ Executive onboarding and implementation
Duration: 6–10 weeks
Investment: from €18,000 (pilot in 1–2 teams, depending on scope)
2) Strategic Advisory (Retainer)
For high-stakes contexts: M&A, restructuring, pricing strategy, strategic product decisions, AI governance.
A strategic thinking partner for critical decisions: structure, reviews, risk checks and clear decision documentation.
Typical services
→ 2× executive sessions per month (90 min)
→ Review of decision documents (async)
→ Quarterly review of top decisions
→ Risk review of critical decisions
→ Fast access (48h response time)
Duration: 6–12 months
Investment: from €8,000/month (depending on scope)
Scientific Foundation
This approach is grounded in research.
The quality of the decision-making process is empirically linked to the effectiveness of strategic decisions. Structured decision frameworks and clear criteria support more consistent judgements and can reduce the distortions that systematically undermine decisions under pressure or stakeholder influence (Dean & Sharfman, 1996; Milkman et al., 2009; Morewedge et al., 2015).
The full evidence base with sources is available on the Expertise page.
Numbers & Indicative Calculations - Businesses
The figures shown are intended to give a sense of the potential scale of effects and have been calculated conservatively. They are not a guarantee of specific results. Actual figures will vary depending on role structure, compensation levels, actual meeting load and degree of implementation.
Executive Summary (Reference Example)
Reference company: 80 employees | 46 working weeks/year | avg. fully loaded cost ≈ €60/h | avg. meeting load 3h/person/week
Meetings & coordination (baseline): ≈ €664,800 per year tied up
Structurally locked capital (total): ≈ €1,070,000 p.a.
Conservatively realisable (portion): ≈ €180,000–220,000 p.a.
(Details in the examples below.)
Note: fully loaded costs per working hour are in practice often closer to €60–100, depending on role mix and compensation levels. The following calculations deliberately use a conservative baseline. No guarantee, just orientation. Details per lever.
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Problem: high, persistently locked time investment
Locked capital (baseline):
3h/week × 80 employees × €60/h × 46 weeks
→ ≈ €662,000 per year
Commonly reported: 20–40% reduction
→ ≈ €132,000–264,000 potential
Conservative estimate: 10% reduction
→ ≈ €66,200 per year
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Problem: delayed decisions caused by clarification and coordination loops
Commonly reported: double-digit time gains (e.g. 10–30%)
Conservative estimate: 30 minutes per person/week
→ ≈ €110,400 per year
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Problem: individual decisions with significant downstream costs
Commonly reported: structured decision processes reduce poor decisions, particularly in complex contexts
Conservative estimate: 1 avoided poor decision per year
→ ≈ €80,000–200,000 per year
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Problem: rework caused by unclear decisions and handovers
Commonly reported: 10–20% reduction
Conservative estimate: 1 hour per person/month
→ ≈ €57,600 per year
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Problem: additional clarification and conflict costs
Commonly reported: effects show up indirectly via quality, learning capacity and conflict costs
Conservative estimate: 1 hour less clarification per person/month
→ ≈ €57,600 per year (plus qualitative effects)
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Problem: high replacement and onboarding costs
Commonly reported: 50–200% of annual salary per departure
Conservative estimate: 1.5 departures/year at 0.75× annual salary
→ ≈ €79,000 per year
Capital Locked in Inefficient Structures (Context)
Time that is regularly tied up in meetings, decision loops, rework or clarification conflicts is not available for value-creating work. It functions as permanently locked productive capital.
The scale of this is visible in the Executive Summary above. This capital is not lost. It's there, but structurally blocked.
That's exactly what the Decision Audit is designed to address.
We make visible where time and quality are being lost, quantify the bottlenecks and derive a clear development strategy from the findings.
Quick FAQ
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When decisions are cross-functional and coordination is visibly eating into time and money. Typically from around 30 employees, or when multiple departments are tied to the same decisions (prioritisation, budget, hiring, strategy, AI governance).
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A dedicated point of contact, access to 2–4 core meeting formats and 3–6 interview partners across the decision chain. Preparation is minimal; what matters most is real decision cases and typical bottlenecks.
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Three options:
(a) you implement the roadmap internally,
(b) we support the implementation (standards, decision rights, protocols, pilot, rollout),
(c) we work together on an ongoing basis (Executive Advisory) to safeguard high-stakes decisions and keep the system stable.