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@ O.M
2025-04-21 09:59:02Principle:
Reduce internal friction by minimizing unnecessary processes, approvals, and meetings.
Empower small, autonomous teams to make decisions quickly and independently.
💡 What It Means
- Bureaucracy kills speed, innovation, and ownership.
- Instead of creating endless layers of management and approval, build the smallest system necessary to enable great work.
- Give teams the trust and tools they need to move fast.
The goal is not chaos, but flexibility with lightweight structure—so the organization stays dynamic as it scales.
📈 Why It Matters
✅ Speed is a competitive advantage in entrepreneurship.
✅ Empowered teams are more creative and motivated.
✅ Minimal bureaucracy allows companies to iterate fast and stay customer-focused.
🏛️ Examples in Action
- Spotify uses small “squads” with high autonomy and light-touch leadership to maintain speed and innovation.
- Basecamp designs its company around minimal meetings, clear asynchronous communication, and trusting small teams to own outcomes.
- Amazon uses the "two-pizza team" rule—teams should be small enough to be fed with two pizzas.
📚 Resources to Explore
- 📄 Spotify’s Engineering Culture – Part 1
- 📖 Basecamp’s Approach to Minimal Management
- 📘 Harvard Business Review on 3 Ways to Improve Your Decision Making
- Spotify Engineering Culture - Part 1 (aka the "Spotify Model")
🚀 Action Prompthttps://hbr.org/2018/01/3-ways-to-improve-your-decision-making
Ask yourself:
"What approvals, meetings, or processes can I eliminate or simplify today to help my team move faster?"Build only as much structure as needed—and no more. Protect creativity, speed, and ownership at all costs.