We’ve talked about assumptions.

We’ve talked about speed pressure.

We’ve talked about governance theater—

what happens when controls exist on paper, but not in practice.

Today, we’re talking about something quieter.

Something slower.

Something that rarely feels urgent when it begins.

Drift.

Because many organizational failures do not begin with dramatic mistakes.

They begin with gradual relaxation.

A process gets skipped once.

A review gets shortened.

A control that used to matter becomes optional.

A team says, “We’ve done this plenty of times.”

And nothing bad happens.

So the change sticks.

That’s drift.

And drift is often blamed on culture, discipline, or people.

But most of the time—

drift is administrative.

It happens becaus ...