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TL;DR
Your P&L doesn’t move with the extra work because the work isn’t tied to the P&L, and the few decisions that would tie it there have no owner.
- More work moves the P&L only when it’s tied to it. Every document, meeting and tool has to move a number.
- Every team makes decisions in a pattern, and the decisions it never makes pile up into leadership debt.
- When nobody owns the final call, decisions drift, get reopened, or get made by whoever pushes hardest.
- Change the priorities first and tie each one to the P&L. Then build systems with one owner and one KPI each, reviewed every week.
You have great people, a great product and a team busier than ever. The company is growing, and it could grow much faster. But the extra work doesn’t show up in the P&L. I see it again and again in startups and scale-ups with 20 to 300 people. After reading this, you’ll be able to spot the decisions that hold your number back, and put one owner on each.
Why doesn’t more work move the P&L?
More work doesn’t move the P&L because it isn’t tied to it. Almost every time I see a team busier than ever, it’s busy on the wrong things: work that isn’t connected to where the company wants to be, or to the P&L.
The busy part shows up in the data. In Microsoft’s 2025 survey of 31,000 knowledge workers in 31 markets, 48% of employees and 52% of leaders said their work feels chaotic and fragmented1. Its Microsoft 365 data showed meetings after 8 pm up 16% in a year1. The direction is harder to see. In Gallup’s May 2025 survey of US employees, fewer than half (47%) strongly agreed that they know what is expected of them at work2.
Long days and late meetings show effort. They don’t show whether the work moves a number. In the systems I build, every document, meeting and tool has to move one number, connected to your P&L. Work that moves no number is activity, not progress.
Work drifts away from the P&L when the decisions that would point it there have no owner.
Which decisions does nobody own?
The decisions nobody owns are the ones your team’s way of deciding keeps skipping. Every team makes decisions in a pattern. Make them the same way for too long and the decisions you never make start to pile up. That’s leadership debt, and it’s why growth stalls.
My free leadership style assessment names six of these patterns, or defaults, and the debt each one builds:
| Default | What it does | The debt it builds |
|---|---|---|
| Decider | Makes the call | Bottleneck debt |
| Expert | Gets it right | Delay debt |
| Rainmaker | Wins the deal | Key-person debt |
| Expander | Grows it | Execution debt |
| Loyalist | Holds the team | People debt |
| Improviser | Moves now | Structure debt |
None of them is right or wrong. Each one is the right leadership for some moment.
A team builds the debt of the default it leads with. A team that leads with Loyalist builds People debt: peace wins every tie, and the hard decisions about people, roles and performance keep getting postponed.
A team can also miss a way of deciding. When the one it misses is Decider, nobody owns the final call. Decisions drift, get reopened, or get made by whoever pushes hardest. At the other end, when the decisions all wait for one person, often you, that’s a founder bottleneck. My founder bottleneck guide shows how to find yours in one week of your calendar.
How well a company decides shows up in its results. Bain’s 10-year research program with more than 1,000 companies found a clear correlation, at a minimum 95% confidence level, between decision effectiveness and business performance3.
Why do decisions between teams end up with no owner?
Decisions between teams end up with no owner because nobody knows who decides what. Good people ask before they act. And the hand-off from sales to delivery is where promises to clients tend to get lost.
Bain gives a clear example. The European division of an American automaker kept lagging behind competitors in bringing out new features. Marketing thought it was in charge of deciding new features. So did Product Development. The two had different incentives, so they could never agree3.
Notice the incentives in that example. People move toward what they’re paid for, so two teams with different incentives pull the same decision two ways.
The fix is plain.
Every number and every project has one name next to it. Not a team. A person.
Then decision rights: who decides what, written down. Decisions stop waiting for you, and your team stops asking.
How do you find the decisions nobody owns?
You find the decisions nobody owns by looking at how your team works today: what drives people, which incentives move them, what works and where the real bottlenecks are.
Here is how I do it. I learn about the company, its market, team and challenges, and I suggest priorities based on its reality and goals. I get to know the team: what drives them and which incentives move them. Together we find what works, what to do more of and less of, the real bottlenecks and the missing resources.
Ask the same about your own team:
- What drives each person, and which incentives move them?
- What works, and what should we do more of?
- What should we do less of?
- Where are the real bottlenecks?
- Which resources are missing?
Then go back to the table above. The debt your team’s default builds points to the decisions it keeps skipping.
What should you change first?
Change the priorities first: set the right ones, and tie each one to the P&L. That’s the first thing I do, and what my first 30 days are for. Then get them done, and build the systems that sustain performance without heroes.
Each of those systems has one owner and one KPI, connected to your P&L, and the people in it are paid toward that KPI. Your team reviews it every week on one dashboard, and you change it quarterly if needed. My guide on how to build business systems shows how to build each one.
Two clients show what a clear choice can do. Each changed several things, but each turned on one decision. Sincrolab, a digital therapy company, decided who to sell to. It dropped the “something for everyone” package: one type of buyer, plus hands-on support that made buying feel safe. Monthly recurring revenue went up 50% in under 4 months, with less money spent on leads that never bought and more deals closed. At Callstack, a React and React Native engineering firm, revenue had slowed. We chose their target markets and wrote a new story for them. Revenue grew 18% in 2025 (client cases).
Questions people ask
Should the CEO own all of these decisions?
No. A full-time CEO spends most of the week deciding, hiring and building. Everything else has an owner who isn’t you. That takes doing less, not more: you choose what to let go of, what to hand over and what to say no to. Then every number and every project gets one name next to it, and most of those names aren’t yours.
How often should we review priorities?
Every week, through the numbers they’re tied to. In the systems I build, each KPI is connected to your P&L, has one owner and is reviewed every week on one dashboard. You change it quarterly if needed. Don’t skip that review: it’s the most important meeting a leader has each week.
Which go-to-market decisions do teams put off?
The ones that feel risky: which customer to sell to, which enemy to position against and which label to use. Teams argue about them for months. My test is simple: if you can’t write a decision in one sentence, you haven’t made it yet. My GTM playbook guide covers the four go-to-market decisions and how to make them with your team.
The bottom line
Your team isn’t short of effort. The P&L moves when the work is tied to it and the few decisions behind the work each have one owner. Set the right priorities, tie each one to the P&L, and put one name next to every number and every project. Every team decides in a pattern, and every pattern skips something. Find what yours skips before you add more work.
The debt starts when the moment changes and the decisions don’t.
Sources
- Microsoft WorkLab, “Breaking down the infinite workday”, Work Trend Index special report, June 17, 2025. microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/breaking-down-infinite-workday
- Jim Harter, “Anemic Employee Engagement Points to Leadership Challenges”, Gallup, August 5, 2025. gallup.com/workplace/692954/anemic-employee-engagement-points-leadership-challenges.aspx
- Marcia W. Blenko, Michael C. Mankins and Paul Rogers, “Decision Insights: The five steps to better decisions”, Bain & Company, 2013. media.bain.com/Images/BAIN_BRIEF_Decision_Insights_The_five_steps_to_better_decisions.pdf
