This cycle feels normal, but it is far from harmless. Follow-ups have a cost - and it is much higher than most organisations realise.
First, there is the direct cost of time. Every hour spent in a follow-up meeting or writing a clarifying email is an hour not spent on proactive, value-creating work. Senior leaders might spend dozens of hours per month just on productivity drain is enormous.
Then there is the cost of delay. When decisions are deferred, projects slow down. Commitments shift. Deadlines get pushed out. The cost is not just the lost time but higher - delayed risk assessments, delayed approvals, delayed implementations all cascading through operational cycles.
There is also a hidden psychological cost. Teams become frustrated. Momentum stalls. People stop raising questions in the meeting because they assume the answer will have to be chased down later. The culture itself begins to shift.
Why does this happen?
Often, the information needed to make the decision is not in the room - it is buried in a policy document, a previous decision record, or the head of a colleague who is not present. The team assumes which carries risk, or defers until the information can be found.
This is exactly the problem auriqa was built to solve. By listening to the conversation, decoding the questions being asked, and surfacing trusted, source-backed information from your working knowledge base, auriqa turns a follow-up into an in-the-moment decision.
The impact is immediate.
Meetings stop creating work and start completing it. The number of follow-ups drops. Projects find their natural cadence and teams leave the room with decisions made and recorded, not just discussed.
Follow-ups will never disappear entirely - but the organisations that reduce them dramatically will gain a hidden advantage: more time for proactive work, fewer delays, and a culture that moves forward with confidence.