In the quest for growth, many leaders watch their talented, committed teams put in long hours only to see projects crawl and momentum stall. It’s a deeply frustrating paradox: everyone is working hard, but nothing is moving fast.

Bayo Akinola-Odusola’s recent article in Entrepreneur brilliantly addresses this, identifying the real culprit not as a lack of effort, but as a critical “execution leak” rooted in organizational design. (Full article here.)

The ultimate differentiator in today’s business landscape is decision-making speed. When progress slows, the issue is almost never motivation; it is a lack of clarity.

The True Cost of Unclear Ownership

The article highlights that when people do not have clear ownership over a decision, they naturally hesitate. That hesitation leads to checking with a peer, who checks with a manager, resulting in a decision “bouncing around” the organization.

This pattern, often disguised as “due diligence” or “collaboration,” introduces friction into every workflow. It’s what transforms a simple choice into a long, drawn-out discussion. Work piles up, momentum fades, and leaders are dragged into low-level approvals, becoming bottlenecks themselves. The moment decision ownership is clarified and concentrated into one person, the entire organizational rhythm accelerates.

Designing for Velocity: The Power of Decoupling

To achieve true speed, leaders must focus on designing organizations to reduce coupling. A tightly coupled organization requires complex cross-functional alignment for every minor move, guaranteeing slowness. The structural imperative, therefore, is to create autonomous units with clear boundaries and delegated authority. This provides individuals with the necessary confidence and autonomy to ruthlessly execute without perpetual fear of overstepping or waiting for permission. Clarity is the engine of velocity.

When Good Processes Go Bad: The Centralization Trap

Beyond unclear ownership, speed is often killed by a leader’s impulse to exert excessive control through centralized processes.

Many leaders mistakenly believe that standardizing everything increases efficiency. In reality, leaders seeking to centralize all processes kill the fundamental advantage of speed and stifle entrepreneurial spirit. While process standardization can be a good foundation, it becomes crippling when it fosters a “mother may I” environment. Too often, loose guidance is replaced by rigid, bureaucratic dead-ends. This unnecessary friction ensures that many great, innovative ideas never see the light of day. For standardization to be freeing, it must function as loose guidance backed by trust in the team to execute quickly and intelligently.

It’s important to remember that this tactic is an ancient way to halt progress. The CIA’s 1944 Simple Sabotage Field Manual famously advised operatives to use administrative tricks—including the creation of committees—as a sure fire way to stall action and drain efficiency. If a wartime intelligence agency recognized the sabotage power of committees, we should take note of their organizational lethality in modern business.

The Path Forward

If your team is working hard but still moving slowly, the problem is structural, not motivational.

1. Identify the bottlenecks: Which decisions bounce around?
2. Name the owner: Assign one clear owner for that decision from start to finish.
3. Trust and Decouple: Empower your teams with autonomy and replace rigid control with clear, yet flexible, guidance.

True speed is a function of clarity and trust, not pressure or centralized control. Fix the execution leak, and watch your team’s natural effort finally convert into powerful, sustained momentum.