Definition — from the glossary of The Hidden Cost of SpeedThe mechanism through which strategy is translated from abstract top-level direction into locally meaningful relevance at each organizational level. Each leadership level translates the direction of the level above for the level below, using diagnostic evidence as guidance.
Cascading is translation, not transmission. Forwarding the CEO’s slides intact is precisely what does not work: each level has to answer “what does this mean here?” for the level below, and that answer must be locally different while remaining referentially the same. The cascade’s precondition is internal coherence — a level that no longer shares a frame internally cannot translate reliably for anyone.
Where this comes from. This term is defined in the glossary of The Hidden Cost of Speed by Christoph Svoboda. About the book.
See it in your own answers. The Shared Reference Diagnostic — ten scenarios, about ten minutes, your own report, free.