Scenario 02 | Execution Legitimacy

Scenario Narrative

A strategic decision can pass governance cleanly and still fail to take hold. Approval may be formal, documented, and communicated, yet execution remains uneven, selective, or delayed. The organization does not openly reject the decision; it absorbs it without internalizing it.

This gap typically emerges where procedural legitimacy is mistaken for operational authority. Units comply in form while preserving prior logics in practice. Interpretation varies. Ownership diffuses. The decision persists as language, not as a binding imperative.

Over time, leaders read the symptoms as execution capacity issues, resourcing problems, or delivery discipline. In reality, the decision has not acquired legitimacy at the point where behavior changes. What looks like slow execution is often a quiet signal: the decision was never truly adopted.

Executive Summary

A formally approved decision encounters silent resistance through selective execution and diluted ownership. The risk is not delay, but false confidence: believing the organization has shifted when behavior remains anchored to prior norms. Legitimacy is tested at the operational edge, not in the meeting where approval was recorded.

Key Strategic Exposure

The exposure is not insufficient effort. It is the misdiagnosis of authority. When a decision is treated as adopted because it was approved, leadership loses sight of where legitimacy is actually earned, and where it is quietly withheld.

Executive Reflection Prompts

Where is the decision being complied with in form but not in substance?
Which unit-level interpretations are diluting the decision’s authority?
What would “real adoption” look like in observable behavior?
If execution is selective, what is the organization signaling without saying it?