You don’t need as many people as you think to do it right

Who am I?

I’m the guy who pushes the snowball down the mountain.

You need me here because the rest of the team doesn’t know how to start. Nobody wants to go first and maybe get it wrong. Nobody wants risk initiating a project that may not work.

Most people are too afraid of failure, too allergic to commitment and unable to make crisp, quick decisions. They’re too busy overanalyzing the situation.

Not me. I’ll finish the goddamn thing in two days. And I can promise you, it will be good enough.

I would be happy to hear your feedback, one time and early in the process. But after that, we don’t need to sync up, circle back, check in or touch base. No more dry runs and tests. There will be no additional meetings, debates, copy reviews and feedback sessions.

And for the love of god, we don’t need executive input on design. Just let the snowball gain momentum and grow in size on its own.

It doesn’t need another push, it needs everyone to get the hell out of the way so it can go do its thing.

Does your company understand this process? Or at you still addicted to the white powder of collaboration and perfection?

I don’t know how many times I need to say this, but I’ll repeat my mantra again.

Speed trumps quality. Volume trumps accuracy.

Make it fast, make it big, and ship that puppy into the world. And try to enjoy the process, because nobody is paying attention to the results anyway.

Look, I understand collaboration built the world and we’re all supposed to be team players and whatnot, but let’s be real. More than four people is too many for virtually everything.

Which reminds me, if there are five or more people working on a project, now everyone is going to expect free snacks and beer. Great. Another unnecessary line item for the budget.

Why must we insist on refreshments every time we gather? Don’t employees realize this isn’t the last food they will ever see? Nobody needs to eat and drink during a twenty minute conference call. People are just going to eat again in a half hour.

The team won’t perish of hunger without constantly shoveling trail mix into their faces. Quite the contrary. The free snacks and beer are more likely to kill people than fuel them. They’re just involvement shields that block us from regulating emotions in a healthy way.

Bezos famously built the most valuable company in the world on something called the two pizza rule, aka, no meeting should be so large that two pizzas can’t feed the whole group. It’s the shorthand method to ensure no one’s ideas get drowned out, and no projects get bogged down with too many cooks in the kitchen.

Back to my original analogy, which is the snowball.

You don’t need as many people as you think to do it right. Sure, having your small core is helpful at the top of the mountain. Just to make sure everyone is ready and nobody’s dog is in the direct path of destruction.

But once the snowball gets rolling down the mountain, all you really need is one person to manage it, another to record the video on their phone, and maybe one or two other people to make sure some child doesn’t get sucked into the swirling sphere of ice.

Again, I admit that sometimes I have to pull myself out of my solitary cocoon of artistic exploration to inhabit a more communal collaboration with other beings. Being an individualist by nature, it can be challenging for me to trade speed and volume for quality and cooperation.

The goal is to find a good balance between rolling solo and rolling deep. Because either extreme isn’t sustainable long term.

Are you including too many people in every decision?