Christian Ullrich
February 2026
The Decision Clarity Guide defines an approach for making the commitments that emerge from meetings and project work explicit and inspectable. It addresses the common organizational failure where decisions remain implicit and later collapse under reinterpretation. The document argues that organizations struggle not from a lack of analysis, but from unclear commitments that blend decisions, assumptions, preferences, and open questions. This ambiguity leads to repeated meetings, late objections, and fragile plans. The guide introduces the decision sentence as the core unit. A decision sentence states the chosen path, the rejected alternative, and the accepted downside. It separates commitment from discussion or justification. The document outlines principles that require decisions to be concrete, defensible, and consistent within the system. It explains when to write decision sentences, before work becomes difficult to reverse. It describes how to draft them with precision and to make their trade-offs visible. It warns against mistakes that preserve ambiguity. It also positions AI as an assistive tool for drafting candidate sentences, while leaving judgment and responsibility with humans.
Most organizations do not struggle because they lack analysis, data, or discussion. They struggle because meetings produce commitments that are not stated clearly enough to be usable later. Slides look aligned, minutes look reasonable, and everyone leaves the room believing something slightly different has been decided. As long as plans remain soft, this ambiguity goes unnoticed. When work continues, reviews begin, or an external commitment approaches, the differences surface, and the same topics return to the agenda.
The root problem is that decisions, assumptions, preferences, and open questions are blended together in conversation and documentation. Meetings generate activity and direction, but the actual choices remain implicit. What is being chosen is not distinguished from what is still under discussion. Alternatives are not explicitly ruled out. Downsides are absorbed silently rather than accepted openly. This allows progress to continue without forcing anyone to take responsibility for the loss that every real decision creates.
Because the commitments are implicit, they cannot be checked, corrected, or defended later. Participants rely on interpretation instead of reference. Each review reopens questions that were never closed, and each clarification round feels like a miscommunication rather than a lack of decision. The result is repeated meetings, late objections, and fragile plans that collapse under pressure, not because people disagree, but because no one can point to what was actually decided.
Decision Clarity is a way of making the commitments that emerge from meetings and project work explicit and inspectable. It does not try to improve discussion, facilitate agreement, or teach people how to decide. It focuses on a single task: stating what an organization is committing to when work is allowed to continue.
The core unit of the approach is the decision sentence. A decision sentence expresses a single choice in concrete terms. It states what is being chosen, which plausible alternative is being rejected, and which downside is accepted as a result. This structure forces the decision to be complete. If any part is missing, the commitment remains ambiguous and open to reinterpretation.
Decision Clarity treats decisions as separate from discussion, analysis, and open questions. Meetings may explore options, surface concerns, and exchange views, but the outcome that matters is the commitment that survives after the meeting ends. Decision sentences capture that outcome without summarizing the conversation or justifying the choice. They are written to be challenged, corrected, or rejected, not to persuade.
The approach assumes that many decisions already exist in practice, even when they have never been stated explicitly. By reconstructing these decisions from meeting output, documents, and observed behavior, Decision Clarity makes implicit commitments visible. This allows them to be examined directly rather than rediscovered later through conflict, delay, or failure.
Decision Clarity rests on the idea that a decision is only real if it creates a concrete commitment that can be tested later. A statement that allows multiple interpretations, hides trade-offs, or postpones ownership does not function as a decision, even if it appears decisive in the moment. The approach, therefore, treats clarity as a structural requirement rather than a communication style or preference.
Each decision is expressed as a single, atomic sentence. The sentence contains one choice only and avoids compound statements, conditions, or implied meaning. This requires precision and enables acceptance, rejection, or correction of the decision without debating the surrounding context. If a decision cannot be stated this way, it is not yet ready to be relied on.
Every decision sentence must name the alternative being rejected and the downside being accepted. This exposes the loss that accompanies the choice and prevents attractive options from remaining silently available. Decisions that lack a clear price are often revisited once the cost becomes apparent.
Decision Clarity separates decisions from explanation, analysis, and narrative. The purpose is not to justify why a choice is correct, but to state what will be stood behind. Reasoning may exist elsewhere, but the decision itself must stand on its own and withstand skeptical review.
Decisions are treated as provisional until they withstand challenge. They are attacked against real constraints, incentives, and political pressure, not against internal logic alone. Sentences that promise freedom the organization lacks, blur ownership, or conflict with other decisions are corrected or removed.
Finally, decisions must be consistent as a set. A collection of clear individual decisions can still fail if they contradict each other or assign incompatible responsibilities. Decision Clarity checks the full set as a single system to ensure commitments made in one area do not quietly undermine those made elsewhere.
Decision sentences matter only when a real commitment is forming. Writing them too early turns them into speculation. Writing them too late turns them into damage control. The approach applies when the discussion has effectively narrowed the options, and work can proceed on the assumption of a choice.
The most common trigger is the end of a meeting, when people leave with a shared sense of direction but no explicit statement of the decisions made. If the next steps depend on a specific choice, document that choice as a decision sentence. This includes situations where silence or lack of objection is treated as agreement.
Decision sentences are also needed when a topic keeps returning without resolution. Repeated discussions often signal that a decision has been avoided or left incomplete. Writing the decision sentence clarifies what must be accepted to prevent the topic from resurfacing.
Another trigger is any point at which an action becomes difficult to reverse. This includes contract signatures, budget releases, scope freezes, policy changes, or operational rollouts. If proceeding would create costs, dependencies, or accountability that cannot be easily undone, the decision should be stated explicitly before proceeding.
Decision sentences are not written for brainstorming, exploration, or learning. They are written when the organization is already behaving as if a choice exists. In that sense, they capture reality rather than create it, making the commitment visible while it can still be challenged.
A decision sentence captures a concrete commitment in language, leaving no room for interpretation. It does not describe intent, preference, or direction. It outlines what will remain in place after the discussion concludes and work continues.
Each decision sentence follows a fixed structure with four parts. It states the choice, then names the concrete benefit of choosing it, then states the rejected alternative, and then states the downside that is accepted as a consequence. All four parts must be present. If the benefit stays vague, the decision does not explain what it enables. If the rejected alternative remains implicit, people will continue to treat it as available. If the downside remains abstract, the decision will reopen once the cost becomes apparent.
The sentence must remain atomic. It should contain only one decision and avoid conditions, exceptions, or bundled choices. Combining multiple commitments into a single sentence obscures trade-offs and makes corrections impossible. If a sentence becomes long or complex, it usually contains more than one decision and should be split.
Use concrete language tied to observable action. Name actors, scope, and boundaries where relevant. Avoid verbs that signal intention rather than commitment, such as aim, support, or encourage. A reader should be able to tell exactly what will happen and what will not.
Decision sentences are written to be challenged. They should sound uncomfortable if the decision is real, because every real decision excludes something attractive. If a sentence feels harmless or universally agreeable, it likely avoids the actual trade-off and needs revision.
The most common mistake is treating decision sentences as summaries of discussion rather than statements of commitment. When a sentence reflects what was said rather than what will be said behind the scenes, it preserves ambiguity rather than removing it. This often appears as neutral wording, blended viewpoints, or process descriptions rather than choices.
Another frequent error is omitting the rejected alternative. When the alternative remains unnamed, people continue to treat it as available. The decision then appears reversible, and objections resurface as new options, exceptions, or side agreements. A decision that does not clearly rule anything out is incomplete.
Many decision sentences also fail to state the downside. Teams often describe the benefits of a choice but stop short of identifying the costs they are accepting. This creates the illusion of a free decision. When the downside manifests later as a delay, loss of control, increased workload, or political friction, the decision is questioned again because the cost was never explicitly accounted for.
Another mistake is combining multiple decisions into one sentence. Long sentences with several clauses usually hide more than one commitment. This makes it impossible to challenge or correct the decision precisely. If people disagree with part of the sentence but agree with another part, the whole statement stalls.
A final mistake is using decision sentences out of context. Writing them too early turns them into guesses. Writing them as aspirational targets or future intentions weakens their function. Decision sentences work only when they reflect a choice the organization is already behaving as if it has made.
AI can support Decision Clarity by accelerating the drafting and review of decision sentences, but it cannot replace judgment or ownership. Its role is strictly assistive. AI helps surface candidate decisions faster, not decide what should stand or carry responsibility.
The most effective use of AI is as a translation layer. Meeting notes, draft documents, or slide content can be fed into a model to extract proposed decision sentences that reflect the material’s existing implications. This is especially useful after meetings, where commitments exist in practice but are scattered across comments, actions, and vague language. AI reduces the effort required to turn this raw material into explicit statements that can be examined.
AI output must always be treated as provisional. Generated sentences often sound confident while hiding unrealistic assumptions, missing constraints, or softened downsides. Every sentence requires human review to determine whether the stated choice is acceptable and whether the identified downside aligns with the organization’s willingness to absorb it. AI cannot judge political feasibility, incentive conflicts, or accountability boundaries.
AI should not be used to approve, validate, or enforce decisions. It cannot confer legitimacy or resolve disagreement. Its value lies in making implicit commitments visible quickly so people can respond. Used this way, AI supports the process by reducing drafting friction while leaving responsibility, correction, and acceptance firmly with the humans involved.
Once decision sentences exist, the next step is not execution planning or communication work. The immediate effect is exposure. Explicit decisions make disagreements, constraints, and ownership visible in a way that informal discussion does not. Some sentences will be accepted quickly. Others will trigger correction, pushback, or silence. All of these reactions signal whether the decision is real.
Accepted decisions can be referenced in subsequent meetings and documents without restating the discussion that led to them. They provide a stable point of reference when questions resurface or the scope is challenged. Decisions that are rejected or repeatedly revised indicate unresolved trade-offs or a lack of authority. This does not mean the approach failed. It means the organization is not yet willing to accept the cost of the choice.
Over time, decision sentences tend to narrow the discussion. Topics that were previously reopened indirectly surface as explicit objections to a stated downside or rejected alternative. This shifts the debate from interpretation to commitment. Some decisions may be withdrawn or halted entirely once their consequences become clear. Others harden and become durable anchors for action.
Decision Clarity does not guarantee progress or agreement. It makes the state of commitment explicit. What happens after that depends on whether someone is willing to stand behind the decision, change it, or leave it unresolved. The approach ends where responsibility begins.