Deciding to decide well

Had a minor "epiphany" today, a notion no doubt self-evident to any fair-to-middling manager, but an epiphany to the likes of me: Decisions are the lifeblood of an organization. To take it one step further: An organization should be structured around removing all possible decision-making friction at the organizational level most relevant to the decision itself. Period, full stop.

I normally distrust simple prescriptions, which is why browsing the business section at the bookstore is particularly painful. But I've been turning the above idea over in my head since late afternoon, and still can't think of a single counter-example. Whereas the examples of friction are legion (although I tend to think of them as falling into basic categories):

• Bottlenecks (for which I largely blame the Cult of the CEO) due to tactical decisions being doled at the strategic level.
  
• At the other end of the spectrum, the Cult of Consensus, in which the organization hemorrhages productivity in meetings specifically designed to postpone decision-making (and spread the blame for any consequences of decisions that manage to slip through).
  
• Or (my personal favorite) the proverbial "re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titantic" schtick that likewise bleeds productivity with the bonus of allowing the slackers and martinets to contribute even less than normal, while sapping the morale of those responsible for getting work out under deadline.

So my plea to management types is this: If you don't have time to consider all the information involved in a decision, please, please, PLEASE delegate that authority to those who do have that information.