09/03/2026
My COO, Chris, runs our team calls now. My job in her meeting is to say hello and that's it.
When we first decided she was going to run these calls, I thought I was going to have to duct tape my mouth shut. Like actually duct tape it. Otherwise I was going to jump in on something that wasn't mine to answer.
She'll run the agenda past me first, just to check, did I miss anything, do you want to add anything, that's it, and then during the call I sit there.
Here's the rule we follow for every single call, not just the team call. In every meeting where a decision shows up, the owner, the person whose project or decision it actually is, speaks first. Always. I'm only in the room, if I'm even in the room, to approve decisions. Not to generate them.
And if the owner doesn't have a recommendation yet? Stop. Next meeting. Come back when you've got a recommendation. We never allow anyone to come to us with a problem without a recommendation.
Even when I already know what they should do, and a lot of the time I do, I don't say it. Because the second I do, I've just told the whole room they don't actually own it.
I've run companies my whole career. I have an opinion about basically everything within about four seconds of hearing it. So sitting in someone else's meeting and saying nothing is genuinely one of the harder disciplines I've built. Harder than most of the actual business stuff, if I'm honest.
It's her meeting. Not mine.
When's the last time you answered something in a meeting that was never actually yours to answer?
