By: John S. Morlu II, CPA
“I thought someone else was handling it.”
That sentence has probably cost organizations billions of dollars.
A proposal was missed.
A client was not called.
A deadline slipped.
A vendor was never followed up.
A problem remained unresolved.
Not because people did not care.
Not because people were incompetent.
Because everyone assumed someone else owned it.
As organizations grow, responsibility becomes harder to see.
And when responsibility becomes invisible, accountability disappears.
The result?
More meetings.
More emails.
More status updates.
More finger-pointing.
Less execution.
The highest-performing organizations do not rely on assumptions.
They rely on visibility.
Everyone knows:
- What needs to be done
- Who owns it
- What is blocked
- What requires attention
- What was accomplished
Because execution thrives in clarity and dies in ambiguity.
Most business failures do not begin with a lack of strategy.
They begin with a lack of ownership.
And ownership starts with visibility.
The next time you hear:
“I thought someone else was handling it.”
Remember:
You have not discovered the problem.
You have discovered the symptom.
The real problem is that nobody could see what was actually happening.
Signal Playbook AI
Weekly Performance. Without the Noise.
Author: John S. Morlu II, CPA is the CEO and Chief Strategist of JS Morlu LLC, a licensed public accounting and management consultancy firm in Woodbridge, Virginia. He has more than 20 years of professional experience in auditing and advisory work, including service as Auditor General of Liberia and FAR and DCAA compliance work at Unisys Federal Systems. He has led international audit engagements and works across the firm’s government contracting, assurance and advisory practices. He is also the founder of ReckSoft, FinovatePro, Fixaars, Signal Playbook AI and Ratevora.