To manage a large remit without micromanaging, use a 'push and pull' system. For each quarter, select a few key priorities to 'push' on, meaning you'll be deeply involved. For everything else, empower your team to operate autonomously and 'pull' you in only when they need your input or guidance.

CEO Oliver Karaz defines his role by three decision types: 1) hiring senior leaders he can trust to run their domains, 2) absorbing blame for calculated risks to encourage team innovation, and 3) integrating diverse inputs to set the company’s long-term 'where the puck is going' strategy.

Contrary to the popular advice to 'hire great people and get out of their way,' a CEO's job is to identify the three most critical company initiatives. They must then dive deep into the weeds to guarantee their success, as only the CEO has the unique context and authority to unblock them.

Management isn't about floating above problems. The CEO argues that for transformative, high-stakes decisions, leaders must dive into the details—like daily whiteboarding sessions for a new product architecture—to drive non-incremental change and prevent things from breaking.

A simple mental model to distinguish between a Product Manager and a Director is altitude and time horizon. PMs operate at a low altitude (tactical, user-focused) with a short horizon (sprints, weeks). Directors operate at a high altitude (strategic, portfolio-level) with a long horizon (quarters, years).

To avoid becoming a bottleneck, create a decision framework with tiered spending authority (e.g., $50 for any employee, $500 for managers). This pushes problem-solving down to the people with the most context, freeing up the CEO and speeding up operations.

A product leader's job is not to synthesize opinions until everyone agrees, which leads to slow progress. Instead, they must create clarity by taking broad input but ensuring a single, accountable owner makes the final decision. Committees optimize for safety, not outcomes.

To avoid bureaucratic slowdown, LEGO's CEO broke his leadership team into smaller, empowered subgroups like a "commercial triangle" (CCO, COO, CMO). These groups handle operational decisions, only escalating disagreements. This has cut full executive meetings to just one hour a month plus quarterly strategy sessions.

When executives constantly question or relitigate tactical, execution-level decisions, it is a strong indicator that the high-level strategic bets and company direction were never made clear. The problem isn't micromanagement; it's a lack of strategic clarity from the top.