An operational decision is a recurring decision about how work is executed.
It’s not about setting direction.
It’s about keeping the organisation moving.
Operational decisions determine things like:
- who can approve what
- which option applies in a given situation
- when an exception is allowed
- how trade-offs are resolved in practice
They happen every day, across teams, and usually feel small in isolation.
Collectively, they define how a company actually operates.
Operational decisions vs strategic decisions
Operational decisions are often confused with strategic ones, but they serve very different purposes.
Strategic decisions:
- set long-term direction
- are made infrequently
- are owned by leadership
- change what the company is trying to do
Examples include entering a new market, changing pricing strategy, or restructuring a team.
Operational decisions, by contrast:
- happen repeatedly
- affect day-to-day execution
- are often distributed across the organisation
- determine how work gets done
Examples include deciding whether a deal qualifies for an exception, how a customer issue should be handled, or who can unblock a stalled workflow.
Strategic decisions shape the future.
Operational decisions shape the present.
Why operational decisions matter more than they seem
Individually, operational decisions rarely feel important.
But at scale, they are where execution quality is won or lost.
As companies grow:
- the number of operational decisions increases
- more people become involved
- context becomes fragmented
- informal rules stop working
Without clear ownership and boundaries, these decisions slow down, become inconsistent, or escalate unnecessarily.
This is often experienced as:
- “everything needs approval”
- “it depends who you ask”
- “let’s check with leadership”
- “this worked last time, but not now”
The issue isn’t capability.
It’s that the decision itself was never made explicit.
Why operational decisions escalate
Operational decisions tend to escalate for one reason:
no one trusts the system to handle them on its own.
This usually happens because:
- ownership is implied rather than defined
- rules live in people’s heads
- exceptions accumulate without structure
- the rationale behind past decisions is lost
When a decision escalates, leadership steps in to keep things moving.
That works in the short term.
Over time, it creates a pattern where:
- teams wait instead of deciding
- leaders become the bottleneck
- execution quality depends on who is available
Escalation becomes a structural feature of the organisation, not an exception.
The hidden cost of unmanaged operational decisions
When operational decisions aren’t managed explicitly, the costs are subtle but compounding:
- execution slows down
- outcomes become inconsistent
- learning is lost between similar cases
- senior operators stay involved in routine work
- improvement resets instead of accumulating
From the outside, the company may still look successful.
Inside, progress plateaus.
Not because people aren’t trying — but because the organisation never built a way to run and improve execution.
What it means to run an operational decision
Running an operational decision means treating it as something that can be:
- clearly defined
- owned by a role (not a person)
- governed by explicit rules
- applied consistently
- observed and improved over time
Instead of asking, “Who should decide this?” every time, the organisation knows:
- who owns the decision
- what rules apply
- when escalation is required
- how outcomes should be evaluated
The decision stops being a judgement call and becomes part of how the company operates.
Why operational decisions are the right starting point
Operational decisions are the right place to start improving execution because they:
- repeat frequently
- create the most drag when unclear
- surface inconsistency quickly
- touch multiple teams
- escalate pain to leadership early
When these decisions are handled well:
- teams move faster
- leaders step back naturally
- execution becomes more predictable
- improvement compounds instead of resetting
Execution quality doesn’t improve by adding more process.
It improves by running the decisions that already exist, properly.
In one sentence
An operational decision is a recurring decision that governs day-to-day execution — and when it isn’t owned and structured explicitly, it becomes a hidden source of slowdown, inconsistency, and escalation.
