The "Meeting about the Meeting" Trap

The most expensive hour of your week is the one where 8 people stare at each other wondering who actually holds the pen.

Welcome back to the Decision Navigator!

Each Friday, you’ll receive tips to help you Anchor your goals, Discern with wisdom, and Decide better and faster. My hope is simple: that this rhythm helps you live a freer, fuller, more intentional life shaped by bolder, faster, more faithful decisions.

The expensive mistake we've all made

I’ve spent 20 years leading major sales transformations. The underappreciated “pain” of all of the decisions that have to be made wasn’t the options. Or even the strategy. It was Role Ambiguity. I’ve made two major mistakes that I see leaders repeating every day:

Mistake 1: Politeness over Process. I participated in a global procurement where we didn’t define who actually held the vote. We held “meetings about how to prepare for meetings.” We treated everyone like an Approver to avoid hurting feelings. In the end, the choice we made wasn’t because it was the best option; it was made because we hit a deadline.

Mistake 2: The “Off-the-Cuff” Buy-In. I believed “weigh-in is buy-in,” so I invited everyone to share their thoughts. But without a decision-making framework, people gave random opinions that didn’t align with their actual needs. I should have gone faster. I should have forced them to write down their criteria before they ever walked in the room.

Clarity is Kindness

Defining decision roles isn’t about exclusion; it’s about protection. When you tell a stakeholder they are “Informed” only, you are doing them a favor. You are saying: “I have your criteria. I have your constraints. I am going to do the 40 hours of heavy lifting so you don’t have to sit in a vendor demo. I’ve got your back.”

That isn’t being a dictator. That’s being a Decision Architect.

Leverage the DACI framework.

DACI is a, decision-making framework and project management model that clarifies roles—Driver, Approver, Contributor, Informed—to streamline decisions and boost team velocity. It assigns specific responsibilities to reduce confusion, accelerate project timelines, and improve accountability, with studies suggesting a 25% higher success rate.

One Small Step...

Here’s your micro-action for the week:

Look at your calendar for next week. Pick one meeting.

If you can’t identify the single Approver, cancel it. You aren’t ready to meet.

That's it for this week. May this week’s decisions find you anchored, wise, and boldly decisive.

Andy

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If this was helpful, forward it to someone who’s suffering from indecision or trying to navigate big decisions better.

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