Nobody says it out loud. It is a 10pm thought, arriving after a muddled decision or a point you could not land: I used to be sharper than this. You sit with it alone. The other executives having the same thought tonight are sitting alone with it too. It is almost never what it feels like, and what actually changed is not you.

A priority resurfaces that the group thought they had resolved last month. Two department heads are operating on different interpretations of the same strategy. The CEO makes a call, the room nods, and the call quietly loosens by the next meeting. If you have been in those rooms, the pattern is familiar. What most capable executives are running into is not a team or meeting problem. It is a problem of how decisions are being assembled under sustained pressure.