What organizational principle promotes rapid decision making?

Lean organizational structures are designed to streamline processes and eliminate waste, enabling more efficient workflows and faster decision-making. This approach emphasizes agility and responsiveness, as it tends to favor decentralized decision-making authority, allowing teams to act swiftly without having to navigate through multiple layers of hierarchy. By minimizing bureaucracy and fostering a culture of empowerment, lean organizations can adapt quickly to changing conditions and make timely decisions that drive operational efficiency.

Hierarchical structures, on the other hand, tend to be more rigid and can slow down decision-making processes due to their layered approach. Likewise, command and control models centralize authority at the top, which can create bottlenecks as decisions must pass through key individuals who may not be able to respond quickly. Distributed management attempts to spread responsibilities, which can enhance flexibility, but not to the same extent as lean structures that are explicitly focused on speed and efficiency. Therefore, lean organizational structures are particularly effective in promoting rapid decision-making, making them the correct answer in this context.