Inside cover
At a glance
- A consequential commercial commitment requires an authorized management decision informed by operational evidence.
- Where no appropriate level decides, the risk falls on whoever continues to execute.
- Commitment becomes evidence; evidence becomes the next commitment.
The organization promises before it knows what it can sustain.
That single sentence is the problem this book exists to solve.
Commercial commitments are operational commitments. They are made upstream of the evidence that determines whether they can be kept, and by the time operational truth arrives, the promise is already binding.
Commercial governance is the act of deciding what the organization will commit to, on the evidence of what it can actually sustain — and of deciding it at the level authorized to accept the consequence.
This book is the full argument behind the Executive Paper, not a longer version of it.