Scaling Decision-Making: Guardrails Beat Gatekeepers

I walked into a budget meeting expecting the usual spreadsheet tour: what went up, what went down, and where we should trim next year. We did that. But in the middle of the call, something else surfaced: we were debating how decisions should happen, not just what the numbers were. Someone suggested a simple rule: any spend above a threshold should go to a committee for approval. It was…