Summer travel has a predictable effect on organisations.
Not because people are less capable but because the invisible scaffolding that keeps decisions clean starts to wobble.
The calendar fills with conferences, investor meetings, client dinners, offsites, and “quick stops” in other cities. Half the leadership team is in transit. The other half is covering and spinning plates.
And governance doesn’t collapse with a bang.
It drifts.
What “governance drift” looks like in public
Governance drift is the slow loss of decision clarity. You still have meetings. You still have approvals. You still have “alignment”.
But externally, it starts to show.
It looks like:
- Two leaders giving slightly different answers to the same question
- A partner hearing “yes” from one person and “not yet” from another
- A journalist or stakeholder sensing uncertainty and pushing harder
- A client noticing that commitments are being made casually, then revised later
In reputational terms, drift is dangerous because it creates a feeling of unreliability.
People don’t need you to be perfect but they expect you to be consistent.
Common failure modes (and why they happen)
1) Parallel answers
This is the classic event-week problem.
A stakeholder asks the same question to three different people across two days:
- “Are you entering that market?”
- “Are you changing pricing?”
- “Is the deal happening?”
Each person answers from their own partial view. None of them are lying. But the organisation now has three versions of the truth.
Parallel answers happen when the “official line” isn’t written down, isn’t current, or isn’t accessible in the moment.
2) “Someone will handle it”
In travel weeks, responsibility becomes foggy.
A message comes in:
- “Can we confirm attendance?”
- “Can we approve this statement?”
- “Can we respond to this complaint?”
Everyone assumes someone else is closer to it. Or that the person who usually owns it will pick it up later.
Later arrives with a deadline attached.
3) WhatsApp decisions
WhatsApp is brilliant for logistics. It is terrible for governance.
A decision gets made in a thread:
- “Yes, go ahead.”
- “Sounds fine.”
- “Let’s do it.”
No one captures:
- what was decided
- who decided it
- what the constraints were
- what the fallback plan is
Then, when something goes wrong, the organisation can’t reconstruct the rationale. That’s when trust erodes internally and externally.
A lightweight decision-rights map for event weeks
You don’t need a new operating model to fix this. You need a simple map that answers one question:
“Who can decide what, this week, while we’re scattered?”
Here’s a practical version you can implement in an hour.
Step 1: List the decisions that tend to surface during travel
Keep it short. Typical categories:
- External messaging (press, social, partner comms)
- Commercial commitments (pricing, scope, timelines)
- People decisions (hiring, exits, sensitive issues)
- Risk decisions (legal, regulatory, safety)
- Client escalations
Step 2: Assign roles using a simple format
For each category, define:
- D (Decider): one person who can say yes/no
- A (Advisor): one person who must be consulted
- I (Informed): who needs to know after the decision
Example (illustrative):
- External messaging: D = Comms lead, A = CEO, I = Sales lead
- Commercial commitments over £X: D = CFO, A = CEO, I = Account lead
- Client escalations: D = Account lead, A = Ops, I = CEO
The point is not bureaucracy. It’s speed with clarity.
Step 3: Set two thresholds
Thresholds stop people improvising.
- Money threshold: “Anything over £X needs the Decider.”
- Reputation threshold: “Anything that could be quoted publicly needs the Decider.”
If you only set one, set the reputation threshold.
Step 4: Create a single “event week line” document
One page. Updated daily if needed.
It should include:
- The current official lines on the 3 to 5 topics most likely to come up
- What you can say, and what you should not say yet
- The escalation route (who to call if pressed)
This is your antidote to parallel answers.
How to keep one source of truth while moving fast
The goal is not to slow down decisions. It’s to stop decisions becoming folklore.
A few practical habits that work:
1) One place where decisions are recorded
Not “somewhere in the chat”. One place.
It can be a shared doc, a simple board, or a running note. The tool matters less than the discipline.
Minimum fields:
- Decision
- Date/time
- Decider
- Constraints
- Next step
2) A daily 10-minute “line check”
During heavy travel weeks, do a short check-in:
- “Has anything changed that affects what we’re saying externally?”
- “Any commitments made that need to be captured?”
Though it can feel mundane and boring, it’s also the difference between calm and chaos.
3) A default phrase that prevents accidental commitments
Give your team a safe sentence they can use when cornered:
“I don’t want to get ahead of the decision, but I can connect you with the right person today.”
This protects the organisation without making the speaker look evasive.
A realistic scenario: the conference question
You’re at an event. A partner asks:
“So are you announcing the new product this quarter?”
If governance is drifting, you’ll get three different answers across the team.
If governance is working, anyone can say:
“We’re not announcing dates yet. The focus is getting it right, and we’ll communicate timing when it’s locked. If you want the moment we do, I’ll make sure you’re on the list.”
That’s consistent, human, and it keeps control.
The point
Travel weeks don’t create governance problems.
They reveal them.
If your decision rights are unclear, if your official lines aren’t written down, if your organisation relies on “who happens to be available”, then summer will expose it.
The fix isn’t heavy. It’s disciplined.
Clear decision rights. One single source of truth. A shared line. A simple escalation route.
That’s how you move fast without sounding like you’re making it up as you go.