---
id: "contrarian-raci-as-conversation"
type: "contrarian-insight"
source_timestamps: ["§ Mistake 2"]
tags: ["contrarian", "tool-usage", "mindset-shift"]
related: ["concept-co-created-racis", "claim-dictated-spreadsheets-fail"]
challenges: "The conventional view that decision-rights tools are primarily documentation and compliance artifacts."
speakers: ["Lindy Greer", "Jennifer Jordan", "Maxim Sytch"]
sources: ["governance"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-governance"
originDay: 7
articleStem: "hbr-sig-48-decision-rights"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/07/what-companies-get-wrong-about-decision-rights"
sourceTitle: "What Companies Get Wrong About Decision Rights"
---
# RACI Is a Conversation Starter, Not a Document

**Conventional view:** RACI is a static project-management artifact — a spreadsheet to fill out and file.

**Contrarian claim:** the value of RACI is *not* the resulting document but the **difficult, tension-filled conversations** it forces teams to have about goals, power, and alignment. See [[quote-conversation-starters]] and [[concept-co-created-racis]]; the failure it corrects is [[claim-dictated-spreadsheets-fail]].

**Challenges:** the conventional view that decision-rights tools are primarily documentation and compliance artifacts.

**Enrichment tension.** This reframing is consistent with change-management best practice, but note the sharper counter-perspective: McKinsey's *The Limits of RACI—and a Better Way to Make Decisions* argues you should often **abandon** RACI rather than repair it, because the framework is structurally prone to unclear deciders and bureaucratic overload. This article takes the opposite bet — repair RACI via ARCI, behavioral guides, and meeting protocols.