The case
“We have the wrong structure.”
Priya Raman, Lumen’s COO, had drawn four versions of a new org chart. Each one moved the same people into different boxes. She wanted help choosing.
What we found
Lumen’s leadership team met for three hours every Monday. In the eight meetings I sat in, they made two decisions. The rest of the time went on updates that could have been read, and on discussions that ended with “let’s take it offline”. Offline, nobody had the authority to finish them.
The org chart was fine. The Monday meeting was where decisions went to wait.
What we changed
The meeting now has three parts: decisions (with a named owner and a deadline for each), escalations, and nothing else. Updates are written by Friday and read before Monday. Every decision goes into a shared log the same day.
What happened next
The meeting takes fifty minutes. Lumen logs about fourteen decisions a month. The reorg was shelved, and nobody has asked for it since.
