Read time: 4.3 min.

{{First Name | My friend}},

A few years ago, Disney made a move that looked, on the surface, like exactly what the moment demanded.

In 2020, as the streaming wars intensified, leadership created a centralized group called Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution, or DMED. The logic was straightforward: use data to guide decisions and centralize distribution, marketing, and monetization.

In the room, this made sense. Heads nodded. The strategy aligned with where the market was heading. No one raised a hand and said, “This will create problems.”

And yet, almost immediately, something subtle began to shift.

The creative leaders responsible for making the content no longer owned how that content lived in the world. Decisions about release timing, format, and economics sat elsewhere. When things worked, success felt diffuse. When they didn’t, responsibility was harder to locate.

The structure had been agreed to. Ownership had not.

That distinction only became visible under execution.

When Bob Iger returned as CEO in late 2022, his response was immediate. Within hours, he dissolved DMED and pushed profit-and-loss responsibility back to the creative leaders.

No new strategy or task force.

Just a fast restoration of decision ownership.

What Disney experienced is easy to miss, because everything looks aligned at the moment of decision.

The debate happens, the logic holds, and the room moves on.

But alignment and ownership are not the same thing—and they don’t behave the same way once pressure shows up.

Alignment answers the question, “Can I live with this?”

Ownership answers a different one: “Will I carry this when it gets hard?”

In Disney’s case, the structure created agreement without anchoring who would hold the decision once tradeoffs appeared. Creative leaders were accountable for outcomes they didn’t control, while the distribution group controlled outcomes it didn’t fully own.

So when results disappointed, decisions came back up for discussion. When financial pressure mounted, responsibility shifted sideways. Not out of avoidance or bad intent, but because ownership had never been firmly placed in one spot.

Nothing was obviously broken. But nothing was fully held either.

And that gap impacts execution.

This is where the cost becomes visible.

When decision ownership is unclear, decisions don’t fail dramatically. They drag.

Work starts, but it doesn’t move cleanly. Initiatives linger as spend accumulates and timelines stretch without formal resets

Not because people aren’t working, but because the decision never converts into momentum.

Without clear ownership, decisions keep coming back for re-authorization. Confirmation is sought. Assumptions are revisited. Progress depends on reminders rather than conviction.

Over time, this creates a quiet financial leak.

Senior attention becomes the most expensive input in the system, as the same leaders re-explain decisions and time-to-value erodes.

This isn’t slow execution.

It’s decision drag—and it’s often the first signal that no one truly owns the decision once pressure enters the system.

When decisions drag, the cost doesn’t hit evenly.

The first people to absorb it are usually the informal leaders. The ones who step in when things stall. The ones who clarify, nudge, and keep work moving because someone has to.

They don’t own the decision, but they feel responsible for the outcome.

So they re-explain it. They re-champion it. They carry work forward without authority to change it.

For a while, this looks like leadership. Over time, it becomes exhausting.

Burnout doesn’t start with workload here. It starts with carrying responsibility without ownership. And by the time these leaders pull back, the cost has already compounded.

As this pattern settles in, decision-making starts to change shape.

Agreement stays visible, but commitment becomes quieter.

Meetings still feel aligned. But follow-through depends on reminders, proximity to authority, or who’s willing to absorb the friction. You hear professional language that signals support yet fails to convey ownership.

Over time, the organization learns something subtle: it’s safer to agree than to own.

That’s when decisions stop holding once the room empties. Alignment becomes something that’s performed publicly and renegotiated privately. By then, the pattern no longer feels like a problem. It just feels normal.

You don’t need a new process to prevent this. You need clearer ownership at the moments that matter.

First, name the owner before the decision hardens.

Before moving on, ask who is accountable for holding the decision when tradeoffs show up. If that feels uncomfortable, that’s a signal worth noticing.

Second, convert agreement into ownership before the room empties.

Have the owner state what carrying the decision requires of them over the next few months. This is a posture, not a plan.

Third, interrupt re-authorization the first time it appears.

When a decision comes back up, ask whether ownership has changed—or whether the team is hesitating to act on it.

Each of these stabilizes the decision before drag sets in.

Most organizations don’t struggle because decisions are bad. They struggle because decisions aren’t held.

When ownership is clear, decisions move. When it isn’t, the cost accumulates quietly.

Once you start noticing where ownership thins after agreement, you’ll see why some initiatives feel heavier than they should and what changes when someone truly carries the decision forward.

Until Next Sunday,

Shawnette Rochelle, MBA, PCC
Founder, Excellence Unbounded
Executive alignment and decision clarity

If you’re curious to learn more about my work with executive teams, you can find it here.