Leadership and the 'art of Potato Committees

Once upon a time in a distant land, there was a kitchen that made the best potato soup in the world. People traveled far and wide just to sip, to taste, to swallow what they called the ‘soup of the gods’. Tucked in a small room, almost hidden from the rest of the cooks were six men who peeled the potatoes.

These were not just ordinary men, not just ordinary potato peelers, but the greatest and fastest peelers to have to have ever touched the hot skin of a potato. They moved so fast it was difficult to see their hands, almost like a blur. They hardly talked to each other but with one look each knew what the other was thinking. No matter how much, the head cook gave them; they would finish it in no time and ask for more. They finished the work so fast he didn’t know what to do with them. So one day he decided to modify their work slightly. He came up to the group and exclaimed, ‘All these days, you peeled and I chose the best potatoes from the lot. I would like to reduce your workload, so from today, decide among yourselves and peel only the best potatoes.’

Four hours later, when he peeped on the group through a small crack in the door. He was shocked to see that not one potato was peeled and the whole group arguing with each other. The head cook was a wise man; he knew he had made a mistake at once, but decided to continue watching and learn from this bad experience. As he watch he slowly realized that he had actually taken his well oiled team and turned them into a committee.

Is a committee such bad thing? Well frankly, while I love leaders and their teams I detest committees. So today please allow me to break down the three biggest myths so you can understand why I feel so strongly, starting with:

Myth 1: A Final group decision is a good decision.

What is the role of a committee? To discuss and reach a final decision that everybody agrees upon. And that is a good thing, right? To my surprise I found out that a final decision that everyone agrees upon is basically just that, a final decision that everyone agrees upon. It is not necessarily the best decision. I had always thought that good decisions are made after a lot of discussion. But have you realized that some of the best points are made in the first ten minutes. Think of a time in your office meetings when you made a fantastic point and watched in horror, how it got diluted sequentially till it satisfied everyone’s egos. A good leader knows how to extract the best from a discussion.

Myth 2: No one is as smart as everyone put together.

How obvious. No one person in the committee can be as smart as everyone put together. But when it comes to committees, the rules fly out of the window. . Infact I found out that, on the contrary, the entire committee is as smart as the dumbest person with the loudest mouth. Since in most cases that person’s opinion is imposed on everyone. That becomes the final decision. And the final decision is a representation of the whole committee. A good leader will always make sure that she has a pulse on every member’s thoughts mainly because knowledge is power. To do that she needs to tune out the nagging high frequencies and help the others find their voice because she knows that not saying something and not knowing are two different things.

Myth 3: If you wait long enough you will get consensus.

Think back and you will realize that the men were stumped deciding between good potatoes and bad ones. They were experts at peeling, not decision making, experts at following orders, not leading. Like a mother who lets her kids run free in the park and holds their hand when they cross the road, a good leader know how long to wait for consensus, and when to go out and get it! An organization without good leadership is like a headless chicken running around without any sense of direction.

To summarize, a good leader must remember to:
1. Extract the best ideas from the team.
2. Treat each team member as a unique individual.
3. Make good and timely decisions.

A lot of us judge a leader by his followers. The point, like Ralph Nader says, is that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers’.