It’s rarely a single bad decision that derails an organization. It is almost always a series of small, reasonable deviations—each defensible on its own, destructive in aggregate.
This is decision drift.
Decision drift is the gradual, often invisible divergence between stated intent and lived behavior. Strategy remains formally intact, but execution quietly bends under short-term pressure. Over time, the organization is no longer operating toward the future it claims to be building.
This is not indecision; it is misapplied certainty.
How drift actually begins
At the outset, intent and action are aligned. The strategy is clear. The principles feel non-negotiable.
Then reality intrudes.
A quarterly target is missed, so pricing exceptions are approved, contradicting a premium positioning.
A senior hire is rushed to fill a gap, violating a values-first culture.
A public stance is softened to avoid backlash, eschewing a commitment to leadership.
Each choice feels necessary. Each is framed as temporary. None feels strategic.
But strategy is not violated in dramatic moments. It erodes through exceptions that are never re-encoded as rules.
Where drifts comes from
When decision drift takes hold, organizations don’t fail loudly. They slow.
Decision velocity collapses: straightforward calls now require alignment meetings because no one trusts the principles to hold.
Autonomy disappears: teams escalate decisions they once made confidently because the filters no longer work.
Credibility weakens: stakeholders notice the gap between what is said and what is done long before leaders do.
This is usually the meeting where everyone agrees something is “off,” but no one can name what changed.
Why this is not a people problem
Decision drift is rarely caused by incompetence or resistance. It is caused by the absence of a decision architecture that converts narrative into enforceable choice. Without that architecture, intent becomes ornamental. The story stops functioning as a constraint, and decisions default to urgency, optics, or fear.
This is why we look first at decision logs, not org charts.
The correction
Decision drift cannot be fixed with a refreshed vision statement. It is corrected by examining where exceptions replaced principles—and re-encoding those principles into explicit decision filters.
Begin with this question:
Could two leaders independently explain why your last ten decisions were “on-strategy”?
If not, drift is already underway.