When Good Investments Drift: Identifying the Real Operational Blockers
Part 1: Portfolio Performance – From Drift to Direction
The numbers tell part of the story. EBITDA is falling. Cash is tightening. Revenue growth has stalled. Forecasts are being missed.
But these are symptoms, not causes. They tell you what’s happening operationally, not why good strategy isn’t translating into results.
As a Portfolio Manager, Chair, NED, CEO, or Managing Director, you’ve likely faced this situation: a business with fundamentally sound thinking, capable individual performers, and valid market opportunity that somehow isn’t translating these strengths into expected performance.
The question isn’t whether drift is occurring; the metrics make that clear. The real challenge is identifying what’s actually blocking progress beneath the surface performance symptoms.
Beyond the dashboard: where real blockers hide
The most significant blockers rarely appear on management dashboards. They hide in the spaces between metrics, in the patterns of decision-making, and in the subtle dynamics that shape day-to-day operations.
To find them, you need to look beyond what’s being measured to what’s actually happening on the ground. The most common blockers that prevent good strategy from becoming good results include decision velocity deterioration, priority misalignment, execution discipline gaps, management capacity constraints, and resource allocation dysfunction.
Decision velocity breakdown
One of the earliest and most telling signs of drift is slowing decision velocity. When a business is functioning well, decisions flow at appropriate pace. When things begin breaking down, decision-making starts to stall throughout the organisation.
This breakdown manifests in predictable patterns that indicate underlying problems rather than individual decision-making issues.
Decision elevation patterns. Decisions that should be made at operational levels rise up the hierarchy. Team leaders defer choices to directors. Directors refer decisions to the executive team. The executive team brings increasingly operational matters to board level because decision-making criteria aren’t clear throughout the organisation.
Meeting multiplication without resolution. The number of meetings increases, but conclusive decisions decrease. The same topics appear on agendas week after week, with little resolution because decision-making criteria aren’t clear.
Consensus seeking that dilutes focus. The threshold for agreement rises beyond what’s actually needed for effective decisions. Two-person decisions become five-person consultations. Five-person decisions require wider consultation. The pursuit of perfect alignment replaces bias for appropriate action.
Hesitation over adjustment. The management team recognises that adjustments are needed but hesitates to make them. Small course corrections that could have been made early are deferred until they become unavoidable interventions.
A business where decision velocity has slowed isn’t just experiencing operational symptoms. It’s facing fundamental blockers that affect every aspect of performance.
Priority misalignment
In underperforming companies, the issue is commonly not lack of activity, but lack of focused activity. Teams work hard with genuine commitment, but their efforts don’t compound effectively because coordination around priorities has broken down.
The signs include predictable patterns that indicate underlying problems rather than individual performance issues.
Resource dispersion across non-essential activities. Investment, attention, and talent spread too thinly across too many initiatives. The critical few priorities that could move the dial are lost among activities that don’t multiply effectiveness.
Inconsistent communication across functions. Different functional leaders emphasise different priorities to their teams. What marketing teams see as critical, operations teams view as secondary. What finance teams prioritise, sales teams consider distracting.
Operational urgency overriding strategic imperatives. Day-to-day operational demands consistently override strategic requirements. Urgency always trumps importance because decision-making criteria aren’t established to balance operational pressure with strategic intent.
Initiative overload without coordination. New initiatives launch before previous ones fully embed throughout the organisation. Teams experience change fatigue, and the organisation develops reputation for “flavour of the month” projects that never deliver.
This misalignment doesn’t show up in individual commitment or effort. Teams are working hard. But their energy dissipates across too many directions to create meaningful momentum.
Execution discipline gaps
Even when priorities are clear, execution can falter through gaps in fundamental disciplines that translate intention into action.
The follow-through deficit. Projects begin with energy but fade without completion. Initial progress isn’t sustained to conclusion. The final 20% of implementation, often the most valuable, doesn’t happen.
Accountability without consequences. Missed deadlines or deliverables are noted but don’t trigger appropriate responses. Explanations are accepted without adjustment. The commitment-accountability loop breaks down.
The planning-execution gap. Plans exist but don’t guide daily activity. Strategic documents exist without meaningfully influencing operational decisions.
Measurement misalignment. What gets measured doesn’t match what matters most. Teams optimise for tracked metrics that don’t necessarily drive the outcomes that matter.
These discipline gaps create organisational friction that slows progress and dilutes impact without appearing as direct operational failures, making them particularly difficult to identify through traditional performance monitoring.
Management capacity constraints
Sometimes the blockers aren’t in processes but in the management team’s capacity to coordinate effectively, not necessarily in individual capability, but in collective bandwidth and focus.
Leadership overstretch. Key executives have too many direct reports or operational responsibilities that prevent strategic thinking. Their ability to coordinate effectively is compromised by constant tactical demands.
Missing coordination capability. Gaps exist in management structure where oversight should happen. Often, this gap occurs at middle management levels that should translate strategic direction into operational coordination.
Capability misalignment with requirements. The team’s individual strengths don’t match current challenges. Teams built for growth struggle with optimisation. Teams skilled at operational excellence lack innovation capability.
Executive bottleneck. Decision-making concentrates around single leader, creating bottleneck that slows organisational coordination. The business can only advance as fast as one person’s individual capacity allows.
These capacity constraints often develop gradually as business grows or market conditions change, making them difficult to identify until they significantly impact performance.
Resource allocation dysfunction
While cash constraints themselves are symptoms, how resources are allocated and managed can be fundamental blockers.
Reactive resource management. Resources are managed crisis-to-crisis rather than through structured forecasting and prioritisation. The business lurches between periods of spending and periods of constraint.
Allocation inertia. Resource allocation follows historical patterns rather than current needs. Budgets roll forward without fundamental reassessment of where investment will drive greatest returns.
Investment paralysis. Necessary investments are deferred due to uncertainty. The business underinvests in capabilities essential for future performance while continuing to fund less critical areas.
Misaligned incentives. Compensation structures and performance metrics drive behaviour that doesn’t align with current needs. The organisation rewards activity that no longer produces optimal outcomes.
These dysfunctions in resource allocation often indicate deeper issues in how the business understands its own economics and value drivers.
Finding the real blockers: A structured approach
Identifying these blockers requires looking beyond obvious symptoms and asking different questions.
Track decision patterns, not just individual decisions. Don’t just examine what decisions are made; examine how decisions flow throughout the organisation. Track sample significant decisions from inception to implementation.
How many steps did each decision require? How many people were involved? How long did it take from recognition to action? What patterns emerge across different types of decisions?
This decision mapping often reveals blockers that no amount of exhortation about “moving faster” will address without structural change.
Follow coordination patterns through meeting structures. Meetings are the nervous system of any organisation. They reveal much about how it functions. Review meeting structures.
Map regular meeting rhythm across the organisation. Examine sample meeting agendas and minutes. Track how often same topics reappear without resolution. Note which meetings consistently run over time and which functions are over-committed.
This meeting audit often reveals where organisational metabolism is breaking down.
Conduct reality-testing conversations. Have structured conversations with a vertical slice of the organisation, from senior leaders to operational managers. Ask probing questions.
“What are the top three priorities for the business right now?” Tests alignment. “What’s one thing that should be happening but isn’t?” Reveals gaps. “Where do you spend time that doesn’t add value?” Identifies inefficiencies. “What would make biggest difference to your ability to deliver results?” Surfaces blockers.
Patterns across these conversations often reveal gaps between leadership perception and operational reality.
Analyse capacity versus challenge. Map the management team’s capacity against the nature and scale of challenges they face.
Review role responsibilities and spans of control. Assess proportion of time spent on operational versus strategic activities. Identify capability gaps relative to current challenges. Evaluate balance between experience and fresh perspective.
This analysis often reveals where management structure or capability needs adjustment to match current circumstances.
Follow resource flows. Track how resources (financial, human, and attention) actually flow through the organisation.
Compare planned allocation with actual spending. Identify where resources concentrate versus where value is created. Map approval processes and decision rights. Assess flexibility and responsiveness of resource allocation.
This resource mapping frequently highlights disconnects between strategic intent and operational reality.
The portfolio manager’s diagnostic approach
As Portfolio Manager, Chair, NED, CEO, or Managing Director, these diagnostic approaches provide insight without direct operational intervention. They allow understanding of what’s really happening beyond board reports and executive summaries.
The key is approaching this investigation with genuine curiosity rather than pre-formed judgement. The goal isn’t finding fault but identifying issues that, once addressed, will unlock performance.
Only with this understanding can you determine what kind of intervention is appropriate.
Is this a case where support would strengthen the management team? Does the situation call for capability building in specific areas? Is structural change needed in how decisions are made or resources allocated? Would clearer prioritisation and focus make the difference?
Without identifying the real blockers, intervention risks addressing symptoms rather than causes. With clear diagnosis, support can be precisely targeted where it will have greatest impact.
Moving from drift to direction
Drift in portfolio companies rarely stems from lack of individual effort or commitment. More often, it comes from blockers that disperse energy, slow decision-making, and misalign priorities.
By looking beyond metrics to these underlying patterns, you can begin the process of bringing direction back to drift. This doesn’t require wholesale change or dramatic restructuring. It requires understanding what’s really happening and addressing specific blockers that stand between current performance and potential.
Next in the series: Strengthening Management Through Executive Coaching – approaches to building capability rather than replacing management effectiveness.
