4 February 2026
This blog applies to strata committees operating under a standard committee structure: decisions made collectively, professional advice available, and responsibility formally shared across elected members.
In this setting, I repeatedly see the same failure pattern. Decisions stall or produce weak outcomes even when committee members are engaged, informed, and acting in good faith.
The issue is not competence. It is not care. It is not transparency.
It is how responsibility is distributed.
The recurring pattern
Committee discussions tend to follow a familiar sequence.
An issue is raised. Additional information is requested. The strata manager or an external adviser provides further material. The item is deferred to a future meeting.
This cycle often repeats. The same issue reappears on agendas months later, supported by more documentation but no clearer path to resolution.
At no point does anyone behave improperly. Process is followed. Advice is obtained. Minutes are recorded.
What is missing is not diligence. It is ownership.
No one is explicitly responsible for deciding, acting, or owning the consequence of delay.
The outcome is inertia.
What this looks like in practice
This failure mode rarely appears in high-drama decisions. It shows up most often in ordinary, low-risk matters.
A building requires maintenance that is not urgent but clearly deteriorating. Quotes are obtained. A consultant recommends action within a reasonable timeframe.
The committee discusses cost, scope, and timing. Someone suggests obtaining one more quote. Another raises a concern about future budgets. The decision is deferred.
No one is tasked with recommending a final option. No one is responsible for bringing a resolution motion. The matter is left “open”.
Six months later, the issue returns. Costs have increased. Urgency has escalated. The discussion reframes the situation as an unexpected problem rather than a foreseeable consequence of delay.
The failure is not foresight. It is ownership.
The mechanism: responsibility diffusion
Committee structures are designed to spread authority across multiple people. This is intentional and, in many respects, appropriate.
In practice, however, authority and responsibility are often treated as interchangeable. They are not.
When authority is shared, responsibility frequently becomes implicit rather than explicit. Each individual member’s obligation to act weakens because responsibility is assumed to sit with the group.
This creates a structural incentive to defer.
Requesting more information feels prudent. Waiting for broader agreement feels safe. Avoiding a firm recommendation feels cautious rather than evasive.
Because no single person is accountable for movement, delay carries little personal cost. The system quietly rewards inaction.
The result is not conflict or dysfunction. It is prolonged indecision.
Why capable people still fall into this pattern
The committees where this occurs are often competent. Members understand the issues, ask sensible questions, and rely appropriately on professional advice.
Capability does not prevent this failure because the problem is not knowledge-based.
It is structural.
When no one is clearly responsible for deciding, capable people default to process as a substitute for ownership. The safest position becomes further inquiry rather than resolution.
This is not irrational behaviour. It is a rational response to a system that does not clearly assign responsibility for outcomes.
The limits of transparency and advice
Transparency is frequently presented as a cure-all for governance failure. In practice, it rarely addresses this problem.
More information increases the volume of material under consideration but does not change who is responsible for acting on it. Advice clarifies options but does not assign ownership of the decision.
Committees can be fully informed and still avoid responsibility.
Without an explicit decision owner, transparency becomes a record of discussion rather than a trigger for action. It documents process but does not produce movement.
This is why committees can demonstrate diligence while still presiding over stalled outcomes.
Governance versus administration
This distinction is often missed.
Administration focuses on process, documentation, and compliance. Governance focuses on decision-making and accountability.
When governance is treated as an extension of administration, committees become highly procedural but weakly decisive.
Items are well-documented, carefully minuted, and repeatedly deferred. From the outside, the system appears orderly. From the inside, decisions quietly stagnate.
Good governance requires more than orderly process. It requires clarity about who is responsible for progressing decisions within that process.
What changes outcomes in practice
In committees that function effectively, responsibility is not left implicit.
Specific decisions are owned by specific people, even within a collective framework. Someone is responsible for progressing the issue, recommending a course of action, or bringing a resolution back for decision.
This does not remove collective oversight. It clarifies who is accountable for movement.
The committee still decides. What changes is that someone is responsible for ensuring a decision occurs.
Where this discipline exists, decision cycles shorten. Issues resolve with less documentation, fewer meetings, and less accumulated frustration.
Importantly, this does not require structural reform. It requires behavioural clarity.
Why this feels uncomfortable
Explicit ownership introduces personal exposure.
Recommending a course of action means being associated with it. Moving an issue forward carries the risk of disagreement. Delay, by contrast, feels neutral.
This is why responsibility diffusion persists even among capable people. It allows committees to avoid personal accountability while remaining procedurally correct.
Breaking this pattern requires conscious effort, not additional information.
Where this analysis does not apply
This failure mode does not apply where authority is already clearly delegated.
Emergency decisions made under defined chair powers, or matters governed by statutory timeframes that force resolution, operate differently. In those cases, ownership is imposed by structure.
The problem described here arises primarily in discretionary, committee-led decisions where responsibility is assumed to be shared but is never explicitly assigned.
It is a cultural failure enabled by structure, not a legal or procedural defect.
The practical implication
Good governance does not fail because people are careless or uninformed. It fails when systems allow responsibility to remain diffuse.
Until responsibility is made explicit, additional transparency, reporting, or advice will not materially change outcomes.
Committees that want better decisions do not need more information. They need clearer ownership.
JM
Founder + Managing Director
Bettr Strata