Getting CBC right in a one-on-one setting is the warm-up. The real value comes when you scale it — when clarity and accountability stop being exceptions and start becoming the rule. Most organizations trip over themselves at this stage because they confuse “alignment” with “agreement.” OKRs give you alignment on paper, but they rarely deliver execution discipline. CBC scales because it doesn’t just cascade goals — it forces every level of the organization to sign contracts that make execution non-optional.

From Individual to Team-Level

• Start small, scale deliberately: Once you and a direct report have closed two or three solid CBC agreements, move the same structure into team-level work.
• The difference: Instead of one person agreeing with you, now multiple contributors negotiate deliverables, dependencies, and success criteria.
• Key rule: No collective accountability. Each person signs for their part of the contract. Teams succeed together when individuals don’t hide behind “we.”

Example – Startup:
A five-person product team keeps missing sprint goals because requirements are fuzzy and “done” is a moving target. The engineering lead implements CBC. Each engineer signs an agreement on their specific deliverable (API endpoint, UI component, test suite). Suddenly, “we thought it was done” turns into “I didn’t deliver my part.” Problems get surfaced early, not after the demo flops.

Mid-Level Scaling: Cross-Functional Work

• CBC beats coordination theater: Traditional frameworks let marketing, product, and engineering run in parallel, assuming they’ll magically align. CBC forces them to negotiate dependencies up front.
• How it works: Agreements explicitly capture cross-team dependencies — no more surprises about missing assets, half-baked APIs, or late approvals.
• The advantage: Instead of arguing at the deadline, stakeholders renegotiate agreements when dependencies shift.

Example – Midsize Business:
A SaaS company’s “growth initiative” involves sales, marketing, and product. In an OKR world, each department sets its own objectives and hopes they add up. Under CBC, sales agrees to deliver customer feedback, product commits to a feature, and marketing commits to a launch campaign. All three sign off on each other’s dependencies. If one slips, the others know immediately and can renegotiate — not three months later in a post-mortem.

Enterprise Scaling: Bureaucracy vs. Contracts

• Problem: Enterprises drown in governance rituals — steering committees, review boards, endless decks. None of it guarantees execution.
• CBC alternative: High-level agreements define strategic objectives. Mid-level agreements break them down by department. Low-level agreements specify project deliverables. Every level is contractually tied to the one above it.
• Result: Instead of vague “alignment” and “stakeholder buy-in,” you get enforceable contracts that remove wiggle room.

Example – Enterprise:
A Fortune 500 cloud company wants to migrate customers to a new pricing model. Normally, it would drag through 18 months of meetings. Under CBC, leadership signs a top-level agreement with measurable outcomes (migrate X% of customers by Y date). Finance, product, and engineering each negotiate mid-level agreements tied directly to that outcome. Execution becomes a series of binding commitments instead of presentation purgatory.

Why Scaling CBC Works Better Than OKRs or KPIs

• OKRs: They cascade, but they’re toothless. Teams can “align” without delivering.
• KPIs: They measure, but they don’t enforce. You can track failure beautifully without preventing it.
• CBC: It forces people to commit before they act, and it ties every commitment to a signed agreement. Execution stops being optional.

Takeaway

Scaling CBC means moving from isolated clarity in 1-1s to systemic accountability across teams, departments, and entire organizations. Where OKRs and KPIs create alignment theater, CBC creates binding commitments. The bigger the company, the more valuable that discipline becomes.