Ryan Rutan: Welcome back to the episode of the Startup Therapy podcast. This is Ryan Ran joined as always by Will Schroeder, my friend, the founder and CEO of Startups.com. Will, today for the podcast, what I was thinking might make this better is if we invited like 30, 40 other people in here to give us opinions and ideas and kind of help us decide what we want to talk about today. And like, I know you've got like 30 years of Experience on committees and how often do they make things better?
Wil Schroter: Absolutely never.
Ryan Rutan: Ah damn, never mind. Let's just talk. Let's just the two of us do this. Yeah,
Wil Schroter: imagine that. I've been on every kind of board you can imagine. I've been on public company boards, I've been on private company boards, I've been on charitable boards. I've been on my school's board, everything, everything, right? And I have to tell you, they not a single one of them produced a better result. And it pisses me off and, and I feel like in the startup community, you know, early in in our leadership, you know, among founders, we have this idea that if we take something to committee. We've made progress, and I don't know about you, but my feeling is progress, and it's for committees if they want to die, that is where progress goes to die. It is the committees are the cemetery of progress.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, I agree completely. I mean, just just the process of getting the committee together is generally a massive waste of time. The fact that it actually doesn't produce a better result in the back end. Tragedy,
Wil Schroter: but everybody believes like like we somehow developed this notion that if we bring more people together, we get a better outcome. And you know what, I think that is bullshit. Like I get the theory, so I think today let's talk about what the theory is that everybody seems to to ascribe to, and then let's also talk about what the reality is, and why for startups, and we're talking about this as for founders because founders get wrapped into this committee trap all the time, the bigger you get, the more goddamn committees you get, you get wrapped into, and the more useless it becomes, and so I, I, I wanna talk about pros and cons. Uh mainly guns. So what are we to put the pros, Ryan, why are, why are, why did people look toward committee? Like, what do you think they're trying to accomplish the uh the founders? Sadly,
Ryan Rutan: like, at a deep deep level, I think that it comes from a place where like, we're uncertain about things, and so there's safety in numbers, right? It's, it's a bit of a deferral, uh, it's, it's an excuse, it's, it's, you know, putting culpability off onto other people like, well, We made this decision together, so clearly we all couldn't have been wrong, but hey, at least if we're wrong, we're all wrong together, right? I didn't screw this so by myself, but I, because, you know, and look, I get like on paper in theory, the the the idea is that, you know, if we put a lot of smart people together into a room, they can come up with with a lot of good ideas. And and sometimes that is true, right? If what you're trying to do is brainstorm, but so often what we see. Is people involving a lot of other thinkers, and, and that's really what we're talking about here, people to come and think about a problem and discuss it and to provide some some feedback because they're there, so they feel like they have to, whether it's quality feedback or not. When it's when we're trying to get to a decision point. Having a bunch of decision makers does not help a thing, right? So if, if the outcome, the desired outcome is a decision, committee is not the way to get there for me. Well,
Wil Schroter: let's talk about why we justify them, right? You know, why everyone believes going into it, that's a good idea, cause there's committees everywhere, right? There's a million boards out there, uh, you know, I, I've been on the on on public boards, I've been on private boards, I've been on private boards with 40 people on them.
Ryan Rutan: That's insanity. That's so what were you guys trying to leave the planet?
Wil Schroter: Yeah.
Ryan Rutan: What did you possibly need 40 opinions on unless we're also forming an orchestra, like, what, seriously, like what, go, go, help me understand this one.
Wil Schroter: You said orchestra because that's yeah just because I was on one of those, so to speak. So years and years and years ago, I got invited to be on the board of the Columbus Symphony on Columbus, Ohio, right? Columbus Symphony is an amazing symphony.
Ryan Rutan: Were you first chair fiddle or second chair fiddle.
Wil Schroter: No idea what symphonic music was. I had no idea. I still don't, I if I'm being honest, right? I, I did not belong in that board, but, uh, someone that I really cared about, someone that's that's really guided me, uh, in some incredible ways, like Yoda style in my career, um, who's the the chairman of the board, asked me to be on the board. It was a huge honor that he asked me, and frankly, I would have done anything for him, so by all means I said yes. Now, that said,
Ryan Rutan: which I want to circle back to that point in a few minutes. When you're done with the story, I want to circle back to the fact that this is actually one of the major problems with committees. It's an honor to be invited and so then we feel like we have to participate, whether we have any business being there. You knew nothing about symphonic music. Now that's not clearly like you guys weren't there to play music, um, but you should probably have some context or or. Or subject matter expertise. Anyways, back to back to the story.
Wil Schroter: I'd always get roped it as being internet guy, right, so, so they're like, oh this guy understands internet, we need an internet, you know, it's a story about life. So I get invited to join the board, uh, first day I show up and um in most most like uh nonprofit boards like this, like prestigious boards are like all like the the heads of every law firm, the heads of every accounting firm like for whatever reason, right? Um, in a bunch of car dealers for some reason. So we're in there and there's 40 people all around, and they're handing the, the finances around, um, to, to the symphony, right? And, and I get it, it's my first day on the job, right? I, I've been, I've been on this board for exactly 5 minutes, but it's such a perfect example. And, and I'm looking through, I'm combing through the financials, you know, I've been a CFO for 25 years, like I kind of get financials, right? Uh, and I looked through it and I'm like, OK, well, don't ask the stupid question, you're like a complete asshole, right? But you know me, I can't help myself, right? And so I raised my hand and I said, listen, I um uh I I I know I'm the new guy here, so just, just bear with me. I'm just asking this question out of complete naivete. Um, it says here that our operating budget is $10 million but then it says over here that we only earn $6 million. I was like, I don't no financehiz, but uh like that's that's like that's a massive delta for what's essentially a small company. Don't worry,
Ryan Rutan: Will. We make it up in volume.
Wil Schroter: So, so anyway, the room goes dead silent, like not the response, cause I'm thinking everyone just like this guy's an idiot. Did he not like read the next page where we make like $20 million or we have a massive endowment or something that, you know, offsets this? And I'll never forget, I hear this one woman, uh, start like laughing on the other end of this giant table, right, woman I had never met before in my life, right? And uh she was a fire plug, uh, and she and she just she she she looks over, she looks at me, she goes, Well, you just asked the only question no one in here has the balls to bring up.
Ryan Rutan: Yes, 39 people they couldn't ask the one question that probably mattered the most at the moment.
Wil Schroter: I was like like but wasn't dude, there are heads of accounting firms on this, but I'm right it's like I'm the least qualified person here and like I've been on the job for 5 minutes. Think of what that means cause it, it, it, it comes. Everything you just said, Ryan, which is, you have all of these people that have no collective accountability, OK?
Ryan Rutan: No collective accountability, and and no desire to ruffle feathers and make people feel bad, right? I was invited here, it's an honor to be on this board. Why would I insult someone who just honored me?
Wil Schroter: Yep. Um, so where do I wind up like within the next 90 days? On the freaking firing committee. I wanted it to. I wanted nothing to do with that. I like, how did I get roped into this? But I was like, uh like we have to save this
Ryan Rutan: company. You found it, Will, you found the problem, you got it chop it out, right? Yeah, here's your hatchet, have fun.
Wil Schroter: Find your steep 1st, 1st. But let's talk about once again why why people believe it makes sense to go to committee. The idea is, now, now in a nonprofit it's different because really what you're doing is you're spreading your ability to raise money, OK, so just let's call that, it's a little bit different, right? But in many cases, you know, one of the use cases is, um, if, if we bring lots of voices, we'll get a divorce diverse set of opinions, and we'll get, um, you know, lots of other ideas. No one stops to say, Are they any good? Just because I have a diverse opinion doesn't make it a good one.
Ryan Rutan: Well, what's it called when you add all of the numbers up and then divide it by the total number of numbers, the average, so you're gonna come up with an average decision, is that what happens? Yep, yep, that's what happens,
Wil Schroter: so cool, but it's actually worse than that. It's worse than average, because what you end up getting in almost every case, people totally overlooked the social dynamic, is where the squeaky wheel is or the righteous wheel, oh, we shouldn't do this, like, like in this case with the the um the symphony, it was, we can't let go of the musicians, they're too important to the community, right? And agreed, I totally agree.
Ryan Rutan: Well, yeah, if you fired all the musicians, it would be less of a symphony, that is true.
Wil Schroter: Yeah, it's called a band at that point. I
Ryan Rutan: I so funnily, funny enough, they're actually more popular than symphonies from what I've heard, at least according to the top, top 100 charts. Yeah,
Wil Schroter: yeah, yeah, we, we pulled a bigger crowd, we make more money. Again, I have nothing against symphony, right? I don't even know anything about the symphony. Um, so, so no ax to grind here, but, you know, there were a couple people that were very strongly um opinionated, right, and righteous, and they were super wonderful people, so I just want to be clear, like I, I'm not painting him as like the bad guy, you know, or vilifying him. I'm saying they're very well meaning. In their voice, their righteousness, forced, so to speak, the rest of the committee to just go along with them to the bottom of the ocean, because the righteousness of it, what should be done, what what's the right thing. Totally steamrolled, what was actually supposed to be done, like numerically, there's no, it was gonna go out of business, that's like you're gonna defy the laws of of finance.
Ryan Rutan: We have to maintain every single one of these jobs, that's who we are, until you run out of money in 3 months, then who are you,
Wil Schroter: right? But I'm like, how about we do a thing where the symphony sticks around and listen, I'm not saying. He railing on the symphony, right? Uh, what I'm trying to say is, this is the nature of committees, and I see it happen over and over and over. And every time I try to, um, I, I try to think differently about it, every time I try to think like, um, well, maybe that's because it was, you know, a a a nonprofit, maybe that's because it was a small company or whatever. But dude, I've been on so many at this point, like, I don't even say yes to it anymore. I, I, I like, dude, I have no interest whatsoever.
Ryan Rutan: I
Wil Schroter: mean,
Ryan Rutan: we're and we're just talking about like this is, this is an example of like a board, which is, you know, a more formal committee, but think about all the damn committees that we get involved in as founders, right? Even if you just involve your team in a decision, which like, clearly you want some inputs and all that, right? But the minute it actually becomes committee level decision making, It's a disaster, right? Even if it's 4 or 5 people from the team, who again, like, do they have inputs, do they have valuable things to contribute? Hopefully, right? But at the end of the day, like, I, we see this happen all the time. Founders start to to defer the decisions off to, and again, why? Sometimes misguided desire to like not be alone in the decision. Sometimes a misguided desire to involve the team and give them a voice in these things. People do love to have a voice in things. And do you know what else they love to have? Their job, and if you make the wrong decisions at a startup, then they don't have that job anymore, and when you're like, you know, it's a pity that none of us are getting paid anymore, but man, wasn't it fun making decisions together? Aren't you glad you had a voice? They're like, less than a paycheck, actually, now that I think about it.
Wil Schroter: I gotta tell you, like, I, I think there's two sides to this. I, I, I want to address both ends of the spectrum because there's some people that They're gonna be listening to this argument, and they're saying, look, um, when you start talking about having inclusive voices, there's a lot of people that, you know, typically aren't included that should be included in that's not the the message I'm making here, just to be clear, right? I, I get that, right?
Ryan Rutan: This isn't a lesson on dictatorship, that's not what we're doing here. Yeah,
Wil Schroter: yeah, absolutely, absolutely, right. Well uh what I'm saying is, yes, and then once you have that voice, what you contribute has to be better. Then what's already being contributed, right? So, if, for example, uh I go to the car dealership, and a bunch of mechanics are sitting around my car, and they're trying to figure out the best way to fix my transmission. Now, I'm the owner of the car, right? My voice should be heard, but guess what? I don't know how to fix a transmission.
Ryan Rutan: Mine probably should not be, right? Like I was like, I would contribute absolutely nothing to that, be like, is that the front of the car or the back of the car?
Wil Schroter: Play this out. I'm in there. I'm the loudest voice. I'm the guy paying. For this thing, it's my goddamn car, right? Think of how much I can unduly influence a shitty decision. And and let me tell you like uh a version of someone who gets steamrolled all the time, right? Uh, tech folks, usually because they're always have like the most outgoing personalities, right? Now, Um, and, uh, they, they usually wind up in one of two categories. Either one, they know they know something technical that no one else knows, and they kind of use that to steamroll everybody. Well, we should be using this technology because it's better. You're illegal, you don't know, so I know better, and I steamroll it, right? Not good. The other is marketing just strong arms them into doing whatever they want them to do, because the marketing guy, we try, yeah. Exactly. And so, uh, my point is, the personalities that you inject into a committee also weigh the committee, not necessarily in the way you want it to be weighed.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, look, I, I found, you know, I, and I do, I like to get collective inputs, but I get collective inputs, right? It's still my job to make a decision, right? And so I think that when, when you, there has to be a cutoff point there. I think that people should be able to contribute their value. Um, but like, we don't need to vote on an outcome. That's not what this is about, right? That's not what this is about. It's about providing your inputs, um, and honestly, I have found that when I do this, and when I make it clear that what I need are inputs so I can make a decision, not those that people stop trying to influence the decision. Because in a lot of cases, that's just gonna end up being an ego thing, right? Cause now it's a room full of people, so I want my voice to be the one that gets heard, and I want to do the thing that I wanted to do, you completely change the game, and that's where then it comes back to like, well, who has the most forceful personality, who's the most persuasive, who has the most, you know, behind the scenes leverage on how this decision actually gets made. It's a shit show of epic proportions or tiny proportions, but those add up into shit shows of epic proportions, right? Enough small bad. Decisions made by committee will end up doing the same damn thing.
Wil Schroter: You know, something that's really funny about everything we talk about here is that none of it is new. Everything you're dealing with right now has been done 1000 times before you, which means the answer already exists, you may just not know it, but that's OK. That's kind of what we're here to do. We talk about this stuff on the show, but we actually solve these problems all day long at groups. Startups.com. So if any of this sounds familiar, stop guessing about what to do. Let us just give you the answers to the test and be done with it. So let's talk about the dilution part, OK? Because um you can bring smart people into the room and still dilute um the the the decision making. It looks something like this, you get 3 people have ever seen a government. Yeah,
Ryan Rutan: well, I, you said smart people, hang on, yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah.
Wil Schroter: Um, but let's say you take 3 equally weighted people, right, those same IQ, same experiences, etc. When you put 3 of them in the same room, trying to make the same decision, the probability that they'll all agree on the best decision is almost zero by default, right? And there's this concept that there's the best decision. No, that's not true. There are many decisions, and one of them might be the best decision. If you knew it was the best decision, you wouldn't be forming a committee, you'd have already made the decision. Correct, you would have made that one. So typically, typically what's happening um isn't a race toward the best decision, it's a race toward consensus, which starts to take off who's who is necessarily the most gifted or capable of making the decision, and turps it off to someone else. I'll give you an example. We're designing a mobile app, right? And uh we're trying to figure out exactly how we want the UX to work, etc. Now, we have a 24 year old UX designer, right? And we have their boss. Their boss hasn't designed a lot of UXs but is an overall product person, right? That 24 year old isn't gonna raise their hand and like, no, this isn't like this this is how the a modern UX is built, right? No, they're gonna defer to their boss, right? And the boss is gonna be like, well, this is how I think it should be done, and when I'm saying this, right? I am the boss in that case, and and you know that you know who on our team is the other person, and, and I'm making fun of myself when I say this, like this is me saying, hey, this is how design should be done, and he's like, no idiot, like this is literally what I do for a living, right? And so this is me just showing some self awareness, but um, but my point is, uh, that is not going to be the outcome you're looking for.
Ryan Rutan: It's not. And look, there's a shadow consequence there too. Which is that over time, if you make people think that they're involved in the decision, right? This is why I was saying before, like, I, I try to be very careful about this, like, I need some inputs because I'm going to make a decision, right? I want to be very clear about that. I need your input so I can make a decision. That's important to me because there's the shadow consequence, you don't do that, where people think they're involved in the decision, and then they put their idea forth, and it's continuously for whatever reason, not the one that's picked. This breeds a lot of animosity. It breeds resentment or just apathy, right? People burn out, so like, I keep, I keep coming, and I keep showing up, and I keep offering these ideas, they never listen to my ideas. It's not that we don't listen to your ideas, we just weigh them against all the other things that we know and what we need to do, because that's the other problem, is that so many times, there is, there is an optimal path, and sometimes at at the top, we're able to see that as the founder, because we have the collection of all those other pieces of input. It is so much energy, and how many times have you had to do this well, where you've over involve people in decision, and now you have to explain and over explain over explain, literally every night at dinner with my family, as I'm explaining to my kids, why I made, you know, uh spaghetti bolognese instead of fettuccine Alfredo, which Jack prefers, but already got to pick the last time, right? Oh, it does, they both sound good. I haven't eaten yet today. I went to a science fair instead, it was fun, didn't fill me up that way. So, it's like there's all these additional costs to this, um, and again, there isn't really a benefit, right? We don't come up with a better decision, and it creates all of these other secondary consequences that I think are far less obvious, but really do add up. Yeah,
Wil Schroter: and what I tell people I was like, you know, they're saying, hey, you're not listening to me. No, I'm I'm 100% listening to you. Here's exactly what you said. I just don't agree with you. Not blindly following you,
Ryan Rutan: yeah, right,
Wil Schroter: the difference. People have a really hard time grasping, um, you're not doing what I say, so you're not listening. And it's like, no, there's, I, I'm used to listening to lots of people, you know, have opinions that I don't agree with all the time. Um, I'm OK with that, right? Like that's it's important, you know, it's important to be able to have those those inputs. I mean I'm gonna follow them all,
Ryan Rutan: correct, that's it. It's an input. It is a data point, right? It is not a line, it is not a vector, it is a data point. I have to take those, put those together with all the other data points I have, and decide what we should do with it, right? That is the decision maker's job.
Wil Schroter: Now let's go on top of that. We create a committee, and now we're entrusting a bunch of people, right, uh, this theoretical committee, uh, uh, we're we're entrusting a bunch of people who aren't necessarily used to processing lots of data points the way a CEO or a CMO or, you know, a sea level person is, and they're easily pushed around. You know what they also have a bias toward? I wish someone would do what I said, so I'm just gonna listen to what everybody else says, right? When you've been doing this job long enough, let me tell you something, like, no, I, you've been doing it long enough, right? Um, it's not that uh what other people say doesn't matter, it absolutely matters. You just, you just can't like blindly say, oh, this person told me something else, I guess that's what I do now, right? Like, you gotta think for yourself, that's kind of like the core of this job.
Ryan Rutan: Also, if involving more smart people made it better. Why are we limiting it? Why is it for people? Why is it 40? Why wasn't the symphony 2000 smart people? That would make the decision that much better, right? Yeah, it's, it's, there's clearly some like logical reasons why, on paper at least it sounds good. Um, but fundamentally, like, it just doesn't improve decision making for for so many reasons, right? How about the fact that we're like stripping away individual accountability, because I'm sure you've seen this one, well, how about this one? Somebody stands up and is like, they want aggressively to, but we gotta go this direction, this is it, like everybody follow along, listen to me, listen to me, listen to me. They do that and then it goes poorly, does that person stand up and go, You know, by the way, I could tell none of you really want to agree with me, but because I'm a hammer and all I see is nails and I hit the nail, um, I made the mistake like that it never comes back, right? It's always like, you know, well, we decided, right, you know, yeah, I was leading that charge, but you know, collectively we we decided, so there's no individual accountability, which if we're making really important decisions. Pretty dangerous.
Wil Schroter: You know who I could only tell you a handful of times where I've been in a room, um, where I've been like, damn, like this is truly like a dream team of like um handoffs and stuff like that, you know, you, me and our team have been doing this for a long time, so we've already got that rhythm, but the, the last time, you know, short of our team, the last time I can remember being in a room like that was in Santa Monica in It's like 2011, Damn, that's a long time.
Ryan Rutan: I was saying I, I know that I know the rough vintage on this just based on the the geography. Damn, yeah, that's a long time ago.
Wil Schroter: I just want to share this this one clip, um, I remember being in a whiteboard, uh in a room on a whiteboard, uh, where me and Jamie Siminoff, who I mentioned was the the founder of Ring, um, and, and Josh Roth who ended up becoming his CTO, um, the three of us were, were doing the the rainstormingrisubscribe.com. And and so I remember some point Jamie looked at me and he said something to the effect of, well, you've clearly got this mapped out, just like tell us and let's move on, right? And I thought that was such a cool thing to say, right? Part of it was frustration, right, which I respected, but there was another cool thing that he was doing, which was why why get me in the way? Dude, if you have the way forward, dude, let's go, right? And I felt the same way, like Jamie ended up being the CEO and and leading the company. I felt the same way with him. I'm like, dude, you clearly know what you're doing, like, all I'm gonna do is get in the way. Go, let me get out of the way,
Ryan Rutan: right?
Wil Schroter: Yeah,
Ryan Rutan: go. That's it, that's it. Most people don't have that much self-awareness, and again, like, depending on like this was these were 3, these were 3 people, like these are 3 co-founders in a room trying to decide something that they all have more or less an equal outcome from. So whether there's like an implied, like there's real responsibility uh there is an implied responsibility there, right? You are, you're you. have an interest, a vested interest in the decision. The minute this is like a board of people who are assembled just to be there, maybe there's a little bit of comp, maybe there's not, maybe, you know, it's a nonprofit, maybe it's the symphony, maybe it's whatever. At that point, like, they don't even have a vested interest in making those decisions.
Wil Schroter: Let's talk about that. Consequence. They don't have the consequence in which if you remove consequence from the decision making process of freaking anything. That is a recipe of disaster. That is the last thing you want. Yeah,
Ryan Rutan: it's literally, yeah, a great way of making bad decisions.
Wil Schroter: For anybody making key decisions without the consequence of those decisions. And you know, Ryan, I think I've mentioned this before. Have you ever seen a committee go to jail for a crime, right? Like, a committee is the most invincible, untouchable thing. They get to wield enormous power without any of the consequence of their decisions, right? See the Supreme Court, right? And so, when you form a committee, what you do without realizing it, is you take accountability off the table and someone's gonna say, oh no, but the, the committee is accountable. You sure? Who specifically? Who specifically is gonna lose their job because they joined XYZ committee and the committee made a bad decision? No one, right? No one's gonna lose their job, which makes it really easy for everybody to step up there and have their righteous opinions. That's what I loved about um not being on the boards, which is people have these strong opinions, and every now and again, rarely cause I just don't feel comfortable playing this card, I'm like, OK, but if you're wrong, what happens to you? And because I mean it's it's, it's such a kick of the nuts, right, because everyone knows, right? Uh, it, well, well, nothing. I'm like, well, are you really the best person to make that decision? Because if the CEO makes it, uh, they're gonna lose their job, uh, if they're wrong, right?
Ryan Rutan: Anytime we anytime we remove accountability, right, at the group level, at the individual level or at both, which is really the case in, in the case of the committee, again, you get this insular effect where you feel safe to make a decision within the committee. And yet there is absolutely no responsibility at that group level, right? And it just, it empowers bad decision making. How many times have you been sitting on a board? How many times you've been sitting on a board or a committee where somebody was really emphatic about something, and then you talk to them about it afterwards, and it turns out they don't really care, they don't really know, they just want to be right. They're just like, yeah, you know, I just like uh get caught up in the moment or whatever. I'm like, well, now a company is caught up in that decision, that's that's kind of a big deal. I I've been guilty of it too, it's like, All of a sudden you're just like, you start arguing a point and you just, you're like you you you don't have the self awareness in that moment to go like, whose interests am I actually thinking about right now, right? because it's not even really my own interest, right? That was the thing that was so shocking about it to me when I discovered and I've become a lot more aware of it now, was that I realized my interest was to be right in that moment, which bought me nothing other than being right in that moment and bought me nothing into the future. And and could potentially cost, you know, the people that we're advising uh something well off into the future. So, gotta, gotta be very careful here to make sure that the conditions aren't set up just to create bad decision making. I would argue, and I think you might as well, that most committees, the way they're set up, the way they're structured, just inherently are designed to make Subpar decisions. Worse than you would just make like almost flip of the coin to be better than what we end up with at at this level.
Wil Schroter: I mean, again, even if best case every single person were or an equal footing. Um, someone has to make it a damn decision, right? It, it, and if what you do is make decision by compromise, that especially for startups, that is rarely the best decision, right? The truth is we have to make a lot of very hard, very risky decisions, and and when we get in a room and we try to de-risk decisions, that's the polar opposite of how startups work,
Ryan Rutan: and we're not even really truly de-risking them, where what we do, we de-risk the decision making process. Right? What's socially acceptable in this case? What's politically acceptable in this case, where, how does this work within the power dynamic that we have here? How do I keep from stepping on somebody else's toes? How do I feel heard all of this stuff, right? So, so we, we de-risk the decision making process, exponentially increasing the risk of the actual decision. We cannot, like, any, any time where the, the decision is an outcome of a series of conciliatory cuts to what we actually should have done. How could that possibly be better? How could that possibly produce a better outcome?
Wil Schroter: Right? Everyone wants the voice without the consequence. Here's an example. I'm gonna form a committee on something everybody's really passionate about in the company right now, OK? But here's the deal, if you guys get this wrong, every one of you are fired. Guess what? Nobody wants to be. Nobody wants to be on the on the committee, right? All of a sudden that issue isn't very important anymore. Oh, what you're saying is you want to be able to have a shot on goal, but have no score to keep unless you win, right? If if it goes well, you're gonna tell everybody, if it goes poorly, I wasn't really that involved.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, I wanna, I wanna go, I wanna go to bat, but I don't want my swings and misses to kind of strikes, right?
Wil Schroter: I just want to. Let's take this in a different context, Ryan, right? Person that works for you comes in and says, hey Ryan. I really want to push this initiative forward. It's super important to me. I think I'm the best person to lead it. Now, of course, if I'm wrong, I don't want any consequence. I don't want this attached to me whatsoever. Who in their right mind would be like, you're the person.
Ryan Rutan: Right,
Wil Schroter: would ever say that,
Ryan Rutan: yeah, or or choose
Wil Schroter: that, yeah. Yeah, let's get you in on this deal. That's exactly what a committee is saying, but we
Ryan Rutan: say yes to this all the time. That's exactly that. It's saying it without saying it or it's saying it and we're not hearing it. Um, it is, it's so dangerous.
Wil Schroter: It's implicit and real. Here's what I say. If you want to make decisions in leadership, make the damn decision, right? Have the balls to make your own decisions. Listen to everybody. If you wanna hold counsel day after day and get everybody's opinion, write it up on a whiteboard, record it for posterity, whatever, so that you could always think about what those righteous people were, right? By all means do it. But at the end end of the day, important decisions need to be made, our jobs as leadership are to actually make those decisions. Don't shy from decisions, don't lean on committees. Again, that's where progress goes to die. If important decisions need to be made, your job is to make them, period.
Ryan Rutan: Overthinking your startup because you're going it alone, you don't have to, and honestly, you shouldn't because instead, you can learn directly from peers who've been in your shoes. Connect with bootstrapped founders and the advisors helping them win in the startups.com community. Check out the Startups.com community at www.startups.com to see if it's for you. Could be just the thing you need. I hope to see you inside.