When Decisions Expire
We put expiry dates on food, medications, software, and contracts. Why don’t we put them on organizational decisions?
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in leadership is that decisions are rarely permanent. They’re made with the best information available at the time. The challenge isn’t necessarily that the decision was wrong. It’s that the assumptions behind it may have changed.
Years ago, hospitals were under significant pressure to reduce costs, and long-distance telephone charges were a real expense. Restricting long-distance calling made financial sense.
Years later, I was meeting individually with staff and asked a very broad question:
“What would make your work better?”
A staff member told me that, in order to call a patient, they had to leave their work area and find a telephone that could make the call. It created extra work, disrupted their workflow, and potentially introduced privacy concerns if someone resorted to using a personal phone.
The original decision had made sense.
But the world around the decision had changed.
Long-distance calling was no longer the significant cost it had once been. Yet the restriction remained.
The solution wasn’t complicated. It was simply recognizing that a decision made years earlier had reached its expiry date.
What stayed with me was that no one had necessarily done anything wrong. The original decision had been reasonable. The problem was that no one had gone back to ask whether it still made sense.
And that’s where I think leaders have an important role.
Yes, we need to understand why a decision was made before we decide to change it. But we also need to be willing to ask:
What has changed since?
Are the assumptions still true?
Who is experiencing friction because of it?
What unintended consequences have emerged?
Is the cost of maintaining the decision now greater than the cost of changing it?
How do we know when a decision needs another look?
This doesn’t need to become another major initiative. It can be built into the ways we already listen to people.
For example: “What would make your work better?”
Short, focused interviews: Ask staff, individually.
Temporary team discussions: Add the question to team meetings for a few weeks or months rather than making it a permanent agenda item. Give people a specific opportunity to identify workflow that creates unnecessary friction.
Performance and development conversations: Include a question in regular performance or development discussions. People closest to the work know exactly which decisions are no longer serving their purpose.
After significant changes: Revisit decisions when the assumptions around them have materially changed—new technology, new costs, new regulations, changes in workflow, or changes in how people work.
Time: Technology changes frequently, sometimes faster than we recognize. Every 5 years this type of review can enable people to take a step back and think about their work, who they are serving and how to serve them more efficiently.
The goal isn’t to create a culture where every decision is constantly challenged. It’s to create a way of noticing when a decision may have outlived the conditions that made it reasonable.
Sometimes the biggest transformation isn’t a new system, a major project, or a significant investment.
Sometimes it’s asking the people doing the work:
“What would make your work better?”
And then actually listening to the answer.
Because decisions, like everything else, can expire.