A Case Study by Shweta Kumar
Rajesh slumped into the chair at Third Wave Coffee, rain hammering the windows like an accusation. His shirt was soaked through, but he didn't seem to notice. The circles under his eyes told a story of too many 2 AM crisis calls, too many Sundays lost to damage control.
"Shweta, I don't even know what the real problem is anymore. Everything feels like it's on fire, but I can't see the source of the smoke."
It was July 2023, and I hadn't seen him this hollowed out since our Motorola days back in 2004-2007. Back then, he was a young engineer who could see elegance in code the way others saw beauty in art. Now, he was CEO of what had been a scrappy 50-person payments startup when he joined as CTO eight years ago. Today, it sprawled across three cities, employed 2,500 people, and processed ₹10,000 crore annually.
The transformation should have been his triumph. Instead, it was eating him alive.
"Three VPs resigned this month," he said, his fingers drumming a nervous rhythm on the marble table. "Not for better offers. They just... gave up. Said they couldn't navigate the chaos anymore."
A ₹300 crore contract was haemorrhaging. The board was circling like vultures. But what haunted him most was smaller, sharper:
"Yesterday, I walked through our Whitefield campus — this gleaming space we designed for collaboration — and overheard two senior engineers arguing about our product roadmap. They were both wrong, Shweta. Completely wrong about what we'd decided just last week. And these aren't junior folks. These are people who sit in my leadership meetings."
He looked up, and I saw something I'd never seen in Rajesh before: defeat.
"When we were 200 people, I knew everyone's spouse's name. Their kids' birthdays. Now I walk through my own company and feel like a ghost. How did we become strangers in our own home?"
He thought his chaos was just "growing pains." But as we talked, something darker emerged: Executive Drift™.
"Tell me," I asked, setting down my cappuccino, "why does your company exist?"
"To democratize digital payments for every Indian," he answered, the phrase worn smooth from repetition.
"Beautiful. Now ask your CFO, your head of engineering, and your customer success lead the same question."
The rain had stopped, but the silence that followed was heavier.
"We did this exercise last quarter," he finally admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "I got seven different answers from my leadership team. Seven different norths stars, Shweta. We're not lost — we're in seven different forests."
What Rajesh didn't realize was that his organization was bleeding from a thousand cuts of Executive Drift™ — that insidious cancer where the Why (purpose), What (goals), and How (execution) slowly separate like tectonic plates, creating invisible chasms that swallow time, trust, and talent.
Before diving deeper into Rajesh's crisis, let me introduce the framework that would eventually save his organization.
When you start sensing that there is a widening gap between strategy & execution, or between you & your leadership team, or between the different teams, you would have already started experiencing a specific pattern of behavioural dysfunction. Traditional alignment interventions miss to trace this entirely. They typically focus on correcting strategy and structure but fail to identify the unconscious defensive patterns that are actually causing it to fail.
This invisible chasm -- Executive Drift™ -- that creates execution friction in teams.
When these circuits break down, organizations face what I call the "Executive Drift™".
Organizations function on mutual trust and reciprocity and shared accountability. And can be measured by looking at an aggregate of the following six circuits:
Over the next three weeks, I helped him map the fault lines using the BRIDGE diagnostic tools. We measured his organization's drift with surgical precision, and each number landed like a blow:
Decision Latency:
Major decisions crawled through the organization for an average of 23 days, dying small deaths in endless email chains and "alignment meetings" that aligned nothing. The industry benchmark? 5 days.
Rework Cycles:
71% of projects were Sisyphean nightmares — built, torn down, rebuilt. Imagine seven out of ten buildings constructed only to be demolished because the foundation was wrong.
Say:Do Ratio:
0.38. For every ten promises leadership made, barely four materialized. Trust was dying by arithmetic.
But the trust dimensions — those cut deepest. We sent out an anonymous pulse survey. The responses read like suicide notes from an organization's soul:
One response stopped him cold: "I've worked here six years. I no longer tell my friends to apply. I don't know what we stand for anymore."
Rajesh pushed the report away like it was contaminated. "My God, Shweta. We're not just misaligned — we're decomposing from the inside. No wonder people are leaving. They're not quitting a company; they're fleeing a collapse."
I told him about the Coherence Bridge™ - a framework I have developed after years of observing how executive teams lose their way.
The Coherence Bridge™ operates through positive feedback loops: strengthening one circuit often reinforces others. Faster information flow increases reciprocity opportunities; clearer goals reinforce dependability; stronger ethical standards enable benevolence. Over time, this creates a coherence dividend—accelerated decision-making, reduced rework, and increased execution predictability.
The Coherence Bridge™ translates into specific leadership practices:
Rajesh looked at me and his shoulders slumped. "Yes whatever", he mumbled.
Three days later, in his corner office overlooking the Outer Ring Road, I introduced the full Coherence Bridge™ implementation plan. The morning traffic below looked like his organization — thousands of individual vehicles moving without coordination, creating gridlock instead of flow.
His initial reaction was almost violent.
"Shweta, these protocols..." he picked up the framework document like it might burn him. "This is exactly what killed Motorola. Death by process. Death by framework. My engineers didn't join a 2,500-person company to fill out forms and follow protocols."
He stood up, pacing now, his reflection ghostlike in the floor-to-ceiling windows.
"You know what my best developer told me last week? He said, 'I miss the garage days, when we could just build.' These protocols will be the final nail. They'll leave for startups where they can actually create."
"Besides," his voice carried years of accumulated frustration, "we've tried everything. OKRs that became orphans by Q2. McKinsey consultants who left behind 200-slide decks that no one opened. Two reorganizations that just reshuffled the same dysfunction. Nothing sticks, Shweta. Nothing."
"What makes you think this is different?" I asked.
He slumped back into his chair, suddenly looking older than his 42 years. "I don't. But I'm standing at the edge of a cliff, and you're offering a bridge. Even if it's made of paper, I have to try crossing."
The board meeting that changed everything happened three weeks later. August 15th, Independence Day, though Rajesh felt anything but free.
He called me at 10:47 PM. I could hear the tremor in his voice.
"The lead investor just pulled me aside after the meeting. His exact words: 'The product is brilliant, but the organization is incoherent. We're considering bringing in outside leadership.'"
A pause. Then, quieter: "They want to replace me, Shweta. The company I bled for, that I grew from 50 to 2,500 people. The bitter irony? I don't even disagree anymore. Maybe they're right. Maybe I'm the problem."
I let the silence breathe.
"You know what hurts most?" he continued. "I can see it all falling apart, like watching a building collapse in slow motion, and I don't know which beam to shore up first."
Something shifted in that moment. Rock bottom became foundation.
The next morning, 6:23 AM, my phone rang. His voice was different — not defeated but determined, like a fighter who'd taken the standing eight count and decided to swing back.
"Shweta, I'm done being theoretical. Show me exactly what Monday morning looks like with your protocols. Not PowerPoint. Not philosophy. Show me what my people will actually do differently when they walk into office."
We met in a small conference room — deliberately not his CEO office. I wanted him to feel like a builder, not a judge.
"Forget everything you think you know about corporate frameworks," I began, sketching on the whiteboard. "This isn't about adding layers of bureaucracy. It's about creating simple, sacred rituals that make alignment inevitable."
For his 23-day decision bottleneck:
"You'll run Decision Sprints — two hours every Monday morning where only decisions get made. No presentations, no context-setting, no 'let me give you the background.' Just decisions."
He looked sceptical. "Two hours for an entire week's decisions? That's impossible."
"Watch what happens when people know that's their only shot. When missing that window means waiting another week. Urgency becomes discipline."
I drew a simple diagram: "Here's the rule — if you're 70% confident, you decide. Not 100%. Not 95%. Seventy. Because a good decision today beats a perfect decision next month."
For the haemorrhaging trust:
"Next, you'll hold Trust Councils. One hour every Friday. No agenda except one question: What promises did we break this week, and why?"
His face darkened. "That sounds like a blame game waiting to happen."
"Only if you make it one. The rule is simple: You can only discuss your own broken promises, never point at others'. It's confession, not prosecution. Watch how quickly people stop making promises they can't keep when they know Friday is coming."
For the rework plague:
"Every major initiative gets a Readback Protocol. Before anyone builds anything, they have to tell you — in their words, not yours — what they're building and why. Not a presentation. Just a human being explaining their understanding."
"That's micromanagement," he protested.
"No. Micromanagement is telling them how. This is confirming they know what and why. There's a universe of difference."
What Rajesh didn't see in those early sessions was the depth of preparation required. Each ritual was simple on the surface but required careful orchestration beneath.
I spent the next six weeks working individually with each of his twelve direct reports. These weren't strategy sessions — they were archaeological expeditions into each leader's defensive architecture.
Take Priya, his CFO. In our third session, she finally admitted what was really happening:
"I've stopped trusting Rajesh's vision. Every quarter there's a new priority, a new direction. So I've built my own shadow strategy for finance. I nod in meetings, then do what I think is right."
This wasn't insubordination — it was self-preservation. Her Goal Alignment circuit had been fried by two years of strategic whiplash, and the Dependability circuit was broken by constantly shifting priorities.
Or consider Amit, the engineering head, who revealed:
"I haven't told Rajesh the truth about our technical debt in eighteen months. Every time I try, he says 'we'll address it next quarter.' So, I've stopped trying. We're building on quicksand, but I've given up sounding the alarm."
His Information Velocity circuit had failed — critical truths were being suppressed because the organization had developed "information politeness" that filtered out uncomfortable realities.
Every Tuesday at 7 AM, before his leadership team meeting, Rajesh and I would meet for what I called "shadow sessions." These were brutally honest preparation meetings where we'd rehearse difficult conversations and surface his own defensive patterns.
"Your instinct when Priya challenges the budget will be to get defensive," I'd warn him. "When that feeling rises, I want you to literally count to three before responding. In those three seconds, ask yourself: Is she attacking me, or is she protecting the company?"
We role-played scenarios where his VPs would resist the new protocols:
Me (playing his head of sales): "These Trust Councils are going to kill morale. My team doesn't need to hear about failures; they need wins to celebrate."
Rajesh (practicing his response): "Help me understand what you're really concerned about."
"No," I'd interrupt. "You're already defensive. Your tone says 'you're wrong but I'm being polite.' Try again. This time, be genuinely curious about his fear."
It took four attempts before he could ask that question without judgment creeping into his voice.
Week 3 brought the first real test. During a Trust Council, his head of product, Vikram, exploded:
"This is therapeutic bullshit! While we're sitting here talking about our feelings, our competitors are shipping features. This is exactly why execution fails — we're navel-gazing instead of building!"
The room went silent. Everyone looked at Rajesh, waiting for him to either defend the process or abandon it.
In our shadow session, I'd prepared him for exactly this moment.
"Vikram," he said slowly, "you just named the exact problem we're trying to solve. We've been shipping features that don't connect to any coherent strategy. Tell me — how many of the features we shipped last quarter are still being used?"
Vikram's face changed. They both knew the answer: less than 30%.
"So maybe," Rajesh continued, "the therapeutic bullshit is continuing to build things nobody wants because we're too afraid to admit we don't know why we're building them."
Month One was chaos wearing a mask of compliance. People went through the motions of the protocols, but I could see the skepticism in their body language. During Decision Sprints, they'd rush through approvals without real debate. Trust Councils were performances of false vulnerability.
I pulled Rajesh aside after a particularly painful Trust Council where everyone claimed they'd kept all their promises.
"They're lying," he said flatly.
"Of course they are," I replied. "Did you expect eight years of dysfunction to evaporate in three weeks? Your job isn't to force honesty. It's to make honesty safe."
Week 5. Junior developer named Ananya, barely 24, raised her hand during a Readback session.
"I need to be honest. I have no idea what we're building or why. I've been pretending to understand for two months."
The room froze. This was career suicide in the old culture.
Rajesh's response would either kill or catalyze the transformation.
"Thank you," he said, and I could see him fighting his instinct to be frustrated. "Ananya just did what I've been too afraid to do — admit confusion. How many others feel the same?"
Slowly, hands rose. Seven out of twelve people in the room.
The head of engineering looked stricken. "But I explained this in detail at the kickoff..."
"Then I failed to communicate it clearly," he said, cutting off what could have become a blame spiral. "Let's start over. And Ananya gets to ask the first question."
What the organization didn't see were my twice-weekly calls with Rajesh during this period, sometimes at midnight when the doubt demons came calling.
"I had to stop myself from strangling Vikram today," he confessed during Week 7. "He promised the Trust Council he'd review the architecture document, then showed up to the design review completely unprepared. The old me would have eviscerated him publicly."
"What did you do instead?"
"I called a break. Went to the bathroom. Splashed cold water on my face. Then came back and asked him privately if everything was okay at home."
"And?"
"His father's been in the ICU for two weeks. He's been sleeping at the hospital."
This was the work — not just implementing protocols, but helping Rajesh develop the emotional regulation to hold space for his team's humanity while maintaining performance standards.
By December 2023, the numbers told a story of resurrection:
But the trust circuit scores told the real story:
The ₹300 crore contract they'd been hemorrhaging? They saved it. Not through heroics, but through hundreds of small acts of alignment.
The transformation wasn't just about metrics. It was about moments:
The Trust Council where Priya, the CFO who'd built a shadow strategy, finally said: "I need help. I've been carrying the weight of financial planning alone because I didn't trust anyone else to care. I'm drowning."
The Decision Sprint where they killed a ₹50 crore project in ten minutes — something that would have lingered for months in the old culture, bleeding resources and morale.
The day a customer sent an email saying: "Something's changed at your company. The last three interactions felt like we were talking to one organization, not five different ones."
Rajesh called me on a Sunday morning in February 2024. There was noise in the background — laughter, music.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"Company picnic. Shweta, I just watched our newest intern explain our product strategy to a senior engineer's spouse. And she nailed it. A 22-year-old who's been here three weeks understands our why better than my leadership team did six months ago."
He paused, and I could hear the emotion in his voice.
"I know my company again. More importantly, my company knows itself."
Twenty months later, Rajesh's organization had grown to 3,200 people. Revenue doubled. Three of the VPs who'd resigned asked to return.
But the metric that mattered most to him?
Employee referrals increased 340%.
"People want their friends to work here again," he told me. "We're not perfect. We still drift sometimes. But now we have a way back to shore."
The Coherence Bridge™ protocols are still running. They've evolved, adapted to the organization's growing edges. The Trust Councils sometimes get heated. Decision Sprints occasionally run over. Readback sessions sometimes reveal fundamental misunderstandings.
But that's the point. The protocols don't prevent problems — they surface them while they're still solvable.
"You know what I learned?" Rajesh reflected during our last formal session. "Coherence isn't a destination. It's a practice. Like meditation or exercise. The moment you think you've mastered it is the moment you start losing it."
He looked out at his organization — humming now with aligned energy instead of grinding with friction.
"We didn't just solve our execution problem, Shweta. We learned how to stay found."
Note: Names and identifying details have been altered to maintain confidentiality. The organization described is a composite of multiple client engagements, representing patterns observed across several transformations.
