Intrenion

Pattern: Responsibility without power

Individuals are expected to deliver outcomes without having the authority or means to influence the conditions that determine them.

Situation

  1. In this condition, individuals are formally assigned accountability for specific outcomes within the organization.
  2. In this condition, the authority to change budgets, staffing, scope, or priorities is held by roles distinct from those accountable for delivery.
  3. In this condition, performance evaluations measure results even when key inputs are controlled by others.
  4. In this condition, approvals and resource allocations must be requested from parties who do not share direct responsibility for the outcome.
  5. In this condition, deadlines and targets are communicated to external or senior stakeholders before confirming execution feasibility with the responsible individual.
  6. In this condition, escalation channels exist but do not transfer decision rights over the underlying constraints.
  7. In this condition, repeated reprioritizations or requirement changes occur without corresponding adjustments to evaluation criteria.

Assessment

  1. This occurs because organizations separate decision rights from delivery roles in order to centralize control over financial, strategic, or political risk.
  2. This occurs because performance measurement systems prioritize outcome metrics over controllable input metrics because of their simplicity and comparability.
  3. This occurs because hierarchical structures allocate authority upward while distributing operational workload downward.
  4. This occurs because cross-functional dependencies are not matched by integrated governance mechanisms that align authority with accountability.
  5. This occurs because leaders externalize commitment risk by announcing targets before verifying operational feasibility.
  6. This occurs because escalation mechanisms preserve reporting lines but do not reassign underlying control over resources or policy constraints.
  7. This occurs because redistributing authority would require reducing managerial gatekeeping power, which creates resistance within existing incentive structures.

Consequence

  1. Without transferring decision rights to match assigned accountability, performance outcomes remain structurally dependent on actors who are not evaluated for them.
  2. Without adjusting evaluation criteria to reflect controllable inputs, repeated attribution of failure to responsible individuals becomes structurally embedded.
  3. Without aligning authority with responsibility across cross-functional boundaries, coordination delays and approval bottlenecks become persistent features of execution.
  4. Without granting refusal rights for infeasible commitments, individuals remain exposed to obligations that exceed their formal control.
  5. Without redesigning governance to redistribute risk upward, risk displacement toward operational roles continues as a stable organizational equilibrium.

Decisions

  1. We decide to accept responsibility only for outcomes where we have documented authority over budget, scope, and prioritization because this gives us enforceable control over delivery conditions instead of agreeing verbally to targets set by others, and accept that we may be excluded from high-visibility projects.
  2. We decide to cap our commitments explicitly at the level of approved resources and refuse compensatory overwork because this gives us a predictable execution boundary instead of extending working hours to close structural gaps, and accept that some targets will be formally missed.
  3. We decide to record in writing each external dependency and treat unresolved approvals as schedule extensions because this gives us traceable constraint visibility instead of repeatedly escalating informally for faster decisions, and accept that stakeholders may perceive us as less cooperative.

Direct formulations

  1. I will not accept accountability for outcomes unless I have documented authority over the budget, scope, and priorities that determine them.
  2. I will limit my commitments to the level of approved resources, and I will not work additional hours to compensate for a lack of authority.
  3. I will document every external dependency in writing and move deadlines when approvals are delayed, rather than chasing informal commitments.