Bonus 9 — Governance & Decision Forums

60-Second Summary

Bonus module 9 of the Manager-of-Managers program. Theme: Design the forums where decisions actually get made.
Governance map + escalation matrix — the real artefact you produce.
Same shape as core 12: 90-min pre-read, 4-hr monthly intensive, falsifiable artefact.
Reviewed by CHRO, VP/Director, sitting CEO, and OB faculty lenses.

Once your org passes 200–300 people, ad-hoc decision-making breaks. The leaders who scale design the forums: who sits on the steering committee, what gets escalated where, who owns which decision, how often it meets, how it's documented. Without designed governance, the loudest voice or the busiest exec calendar decides everything by default.

What the evidence says

Bain decision-effectiveness research: the strongest predictor of organisational performance is decision speed × decision quality — and both improve with named decision forums.
Steve Jobs's 'DRI' (directly responsible individual) at Apple, Amazon's single-threaded leaders: the pattern is consistent — name one person per decision, design the forum around them.
RAPID (Bain), DACI (Atlassian), RACI: all converge on the same principle — make decision rights explicit and visible.

Pre-read (90 minutes)

Read: Bain — Decide & Deliver, chapter on decision architecture (30 min).
Read: RAPID and DACI side by side; when each is better (20 min).
Read: the structure of an effective steering committee — composition, cadence, decision rights (20 min).
Reflect (20 min): list the recurring forums you attend. Mark which actually decide things vs perform decisions made elsewhere.

Monthly intensive (4 hours)

Cohort flow with a senior practitioner coach

1
Forum audit (45 min)
Each leader maps every recurring leadership forum they're in or run. Coach forces classification: real decisions / status theatre / political space.
2
Steering committee design (60 min)
Design or redesign one steering committee: outcome, members (small!), cadence, decision rights, pre-read discipline, written record. Coach pressure-tests the membership size — almost always too large.
3
Escalation framework (45 min)
Design the escalation matrix: what gets decided at the team layer, manager layer, director layer, exec layer? Each leader writes their function's escalation matrix.
4
RACI for top decisions (45 min)
Pick 5 recurring decision types in your function; assign RACI. Coach challenges every R and A — usually too many As.
5
Wrap (45 min)
Public commitment: one forum gets redesigned (or killed); one escalation matrix gets published.

The artefact you produce

Governance map + escalation matrix

A one-page map of your function's decision forums (who, what, when, decision rights) plus a published escalation matrix. Shared with peers and your manager.

Tools at this layer

Layer	Examples (2026)	Use
Decision frameworks	RAPID, DACI, RACI, Bezos one-way/two-way doors	Match framework to decision type
Steering committee discipline	Pre-read doc template, decision-log template, attendance/decision dashboard	Make the forum operate like a board
Escalation tooling	Linear escalation tags, dedicated Slack channels, written escalation log	Make routing explicit, not tribal
Decision records	ADRs (Architecture Decision Records, adapted), Notion decision DB	If it's not written, it didn't happen

Copy-paste AI prompt

Here are the recurring leadership forums in my org [list with cadence, attendees, stated purpose]. Help me: (1) classify each as real decision / status / political, (2) recommend forums to consolidate or kill, (3) design a 1-page governance map showing who decides what at which layer, (4) draft the escalation matrix for my function.

Between-session homework

Forum audit complete; at least one redesigned or killed.
Steering committee design doc written and shared.
Escalation matrix published to function.
RACI assigned for top 5 recurring decision types.

Success signal

By end of this module, your function has a published governance map, the escalation matrix is being used (people route correctly), and at least one ad-hoc decision space has been replaced by a designed forum with a written decision log.

Reviewer notes

CHRO (20+ yrs)

Governance is invisible when it works and excruciating when it doesn't. The leaders who design it deliberately save their org years of friction.

VP / Director (15+ yrs, 3+ scaled orgs)

The single biggest unlock at this layer is killing a recurring meeting and replacing it with a designed forum. The hours saved alone justify the program.

Sitting CEO

I evaluate senior leaders partly on the quality of the forums they run. If I attend their staff meeting and it has a clear pre-read, a clear decision, and a clean record, I trust them to run more.

OB / HR Professor (25+ yrs)

The decision-architecture literature (Sull, Eisenhardt) is consistent: organisations with explicit decision rights outperform on both speed and quality. The cost is upfront design; the payoff is permanent.

Written by Pawan Joshi.Sources cited inline.

First published 30 Jun 2026See site changelog →