What nobody tells you
- By the time a decision reaches an official meeting, it's usually already made — the meeting is often theater to ratify a pre-aligned outcome.
- The person who controls the budget or owns the risk usually has more real say than the person with the senior title.
- Silence in a meeting is rarely agreement — it's often people who've already decided not to fight this one in public.
The basics
- Formal decision processes (committees, sign-offs, RACI charts) exist, but real influence often flows through informal pre-alignment conversations before the meeting.
- Decisions get made where risk and budget converge — whoever owns the consequences of being wrong usually has final say.
- Organizations run on precedent: 'how did we decide this last time' often matters more than the merits of the current case.
The framework
Follow the Risk and the Money
To understand who really decides something, ask who's accountable if it goes wrong, and who controls the resources needed to do it.
- 01
Who signs off, and who actually gets blamed if this fails?
- 02
Who controls the budget line this decision draws from?
- 03
Whose pre-alignment did the decision-maker seek before the meeting?
The playbook
The conversation — what to actually say
Before proposing something significant
“Before I bring this to the group, I wanted to run it by you first to get your read and make sure I'm not missing anything.”
Understanding a past decision
“Can you help me understand how this got decided last time — who was involved, and what mattered most?”
The mistakes — what people get wrong
- Bringing a fully-formed proposal to a big meeting without any pre-alignment, and being surprised when it stalls.
- Assuming the most senior title in the room automatically has the most say on a given decision.
- Ignoring informal influencers because they don't appear on the org chart.
- Mistaking a quiet room for agreement rather than unspoken resistance.
Ask yourself
- For the last big decision I watched, who was actually consulted before it was announced?
- Do I know who owns the risk if the thing I'm proposing goes wrong?
- Have I done any pre-alignment, or am I walking into the room cold?
Go deeper
- Book
Power — Jeffrey Pfeffer
A blunt, research-backed look at how organizational power actually works.
- Practice
Post-decision debrief
After any big decision, ask someone informally how it really got made.
- Exercise
Draw the shadow org chart
Map who's actually consulted on decisions versus the formal reporting lines.
General educational information, not legal, tax, medical, or financial advice. Rules vary by country and change over time — verify with a qualified professional before acting.