Standing Review
Review authority before upward escalation becomes the operating model again
Standing Review compares current practice with the enacted baseline. It identifies where authority is no longer being exercised as designed, then defines the required corrections and assigns each one to a named owner.
- Cadence
- Every six months.
- Prerequisite
- The Install and an enacted baseline.
How authority drifts
Structure does not always change through a formal redesign
After an organization design enters practice, new decisions, exceptions, roles, and routes can emerge that did not exist when the model was designed.
Structure can change gradually through repeated exceptions:
- A decision returns to the CEO because the team wants reassurance.
- A function takes back authority that had previously moved.
- A new role enters the work without defined boundaries.
- A management layer forms around a temporary problem.
- An informal route becomes faster than the agreed route.
- Responsibilities move while decision records and role definitions remain unchanged.
The distinction the review makes
The review does not assume every difference is wrong.
Its purpose is to tell two things apart:
Intentional change
A change that was made deliberately and works in practice, and should be incorporated into the design rather than reversed.
Unintended drift
A departure that is recreating an organizational bottleneck, and needs a defined correction with a named owner.
Who it is for
Who is Standing Review for?
- Organizations that have completed The Install.
- Organizations with a clear enacted baseline for roles and authority.
- Leadership teams with enough live use to review what is holding.
- Organizations where decisions have started travelling upward again.
- Organizations adding new roles, functions, or management levels.
- Organizations whose strategy or priorities have changed since enactment.
- Leaders who do not want an installed design to become an outdated document.
Scope of the review
What do we review?
- Current authority against the enacted baseline.
- Decisions that have returned to higher levels.
- Thresholds that are no longer being used or understood.
- Repeated exceptions and parallel decision routes.
- New overlaps between roles or functions.
- Previous corrections and whether they entered practice.
- The named owner of each new correction.
What it produces, and where it stops
What do you leave with?
- A record of authority drift since the previous review.
- A distinction between intentional change and unintended drift.
- Defined corrections to roles, boundaries, or authority.
- A named owner for every correction.
- A clear sequence for what needs attention now.
- A basis for the next semiannual review.
What does the review exclude?
- A complete new organization redesign inside the review cycle.
- Reopening the entire model because of one exception.
- Individual performance assessment.
- Salary-scale or total-rewards design.
- Assuming every departure from the original design must be reversed.
If the review finds that the organization has changed enough to make the existing baseline obsolete, a new redesign is scoped separately.
Alternative route
If no enacted baseline exists yet, the appropriate route is The Install. The review measures against a design that has actually entered practice.
Explore The Install
A design that is never reviewed can gradually become the exception it was meant to prevent
If your organization has completed The Install and the next authority review is due, begin with the enacted baseline and the decisions operating today.