Summary

At pivotal moments of brand change, the instinct is to add more meetings and status updates. The signal blurs. Decisions lag, and each team holds a different view of ‘done’. Progress returns when governance cadence matches decision speed and decision rights are explicit. That’s how organisations regain consistency, pace and commercial focus.

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Our Perspective

What this means for leaders navigating growth, change or transformation in their organisation.

The Real Bottleneck

Brand change doesn’t falter because meetings aren’t frequent enough; it gets stuck when decisions move slower than the work. The true constraint is a lack of clarity on who decides, on what basis, and by when. Without that spine of decision rights, time horizons diverge, “done” means different things to different teams, and effort diffuses across channels.

Externally, the effect is visible: inconsistent messages and disconnected experiences. Internally, it shows up as busy calendars and unresolved blockers. McKinsey reports that only 37% of organisations say they make decisions both fast and well, a reminder that cadence without clarity is just noise rather than progress.

Cadence Mirrors Decisions

The organising principle is simple: set a meeting rhythm that reflects how fast risk accumulates and how quickly customers will notice gaps. If risks emerge weekly, you need weekly unblockers. If trade‑offs require cross‑functional judgement, you need a consistent senior forum that can actually choose. And if the market shifts quarterly, your outcomes should reset to match that drumbeat.

Most organisations we work with underestimate how often dependencies change; that’s why we advise matching the cadence to the half‑life of risk. Weekly to clear obstacles, fortnightly to align evidence and interlocks, monthly to decide, quarterly to reset outcomes—each with owners and the same artefacts in the room.

Rights, Not Routines

A dependable cadence only works when decision rights are unambiguous. That means defining which decisions are reversible, what evidence is non‑negotiable, and how escalation works when timing or risk thresholds are breached.

• Name accountable owners for outcomes, evidence and approvals—one owner per decision.
• Time‑box choices with a default path if evidence is inconclusive.
• Set a simple escalation ladder with clear response times for higher‑risk items.
• Standardise the “evidence pack”: customer signals, impact on pipeline and service, resource and delivery risk.

Deloitte notes that clarifying who decides what and when can roughly double the likelihood of improving processes and efficiency by simplifying and codifying decision pathways.

Leadership Implications

Leaders set tone and tempo. If you want brand change to land, make cadence and decision rights visible—and tie them to outcomes that matter commercially, not activity logged.

• Anchor governance to outcomes: adoption in the field, customer advocacy, and consistency across priority journeys.
• Make progress honest: a single dashboard, short narrative on decisions made, and frontline feedback read every cycle.
• Link budgets and senior attention to decision speed and evidence quality; model quarterly resets as learning, not rework.

Get cadence and rights aligned, and you replace noise with momentum—the kind that compounds into advantage your customers can feel and your teams can sustain.

Sources:

• Effective decision making in the age of urgency — McKinsey
• Getting organizational decision making right — Deloitte

Further Resources

1. Genuine Brand Adoption: Beyond Compliance in Change
2. Transforming Brand Change with Internal Communications
3. Transforming Brand Impact with Everyday Behaviour Change

Curious how this applies in your market? We’re speaking with leaders across industries every week. Let’s talk.

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