As part of a "simplification and scale" initiative, the firm intentionally reduced committee reporting structures by half. This empowers teams by replacing frequent, heavyweight presentations with a lightweight, semi-annual review process, trusting them to execute against the long-term plan.

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To speed up Ring, returning founder Jamie Siminoff bypassed traditional management layers. He elevated high-potential, more junior employees to report directly to him, not as managers, but as individual contributors running key initiatives. This broke up hierarchies and increased ownership.

The pandemic's urgency forced Walmart's leadership to accelerate its meeting cadence from a weekly/monthly rhythm to a daily one. This faster pace necessitated greater delegation, revealing the high quality and speed of decisions made by empowered associates throughout the organization.

Inspired by Jensen Huang, CEO Nikesh Arora expanded his staff meeting from 8 to 25 people. This bypasses a layer of management filtering, ensuring more leaders hear the strategic "why" directly, reducing confusion and improving alignment down the organization.

The first step to better meetings is asking "should we have this meeting at all?" By eliminating purely informational meetings, you prevent the formation of norms like disengagement and silence. This makes it more likely that when a collaborative meeting is necessary, team members will actively participate.

An investment committee's value extends beyond simple gatekeeping. It serves as a vital communication tool between company divisions, a focusing mechanism to prevent chasing distractions, and a mentoring opportunity where junior talent can learn from senior-level analysis and decision-making.

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.

Jensen Huang maintains an extremely flat organization with around 60 direct reports and no one-on-one meetings. This unconventional structure is designed to accelerate information travel, empower senior leaders, and weed out those who can't operate without direct guidance.

Adopt the private equity board meeting model: circulate a detailed brief a week in advance. This forces attendees to consume updates asynchronously. The meeting itself can then be dedicated entirely to debating critical, forward-looking decisions instead of wasting time on status reports.

To avoid bureaucratic bloat, organize the company into small, self-sufficient "pods" of no more than 10 people. Each pod owns a specific problem and includes all necessary roles. Performance is judged solely on the pod's impact, mimicking an early-stage startup's focus.

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.

Capital Group Cut Committee Reporting to Senior Leadership by 50% to Foster Empowerment | RiffOn