Relying on consensus to make decisions is an abdication of leadership. The process optimizes for avoiding downsides rather than achieving excellence, leading to mediocre "6 out of 10" outcomes and preventing the outlier successes that leadership can unlock.

To combat diffused responsibility, starting a committee at Coinbase requires explicit CEO or COO approval. This forces the assignment of a single "Directly Responsible Individual" (DRI), ensuring clear ownership, accountability, and faster decision-making.

When conducting manual "open coding" for AI evals, teams often get bogged down by trying to reach a consensus. Instead, appoint a single person with deep domain expertise (often the product manager) to be the "benevolent dictator," making the final judgment calls on error categorization. This makes the process tractable and fast.

To maintain the agility of acquired startups, Amplitude's CEO implemented a top-down ban on "decisions by committee." This empowers individual PMs to make decisions quickly without getting bogged down in universal alignment, protecting the fast-moving culture that made the startups valuable.

For data-less decisions, PhonePe's co-founders have a simple rule: the partner with deeper historical strength in that domain makes the final call. The other commits fully, and they never revisit the decision, ensuring they learn and move forward without blame.

To prevent the first or most senior person from anchoring a conversation, collect everyone's independent analysis in writing first. Only after this information is aggregated should the group discussion begin. This method ensures a wider range of ideas is considered and prevents premature consensus.

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.

Counteract the tendency for the highest-paid person's opinion (HIPPO) to dominate decisions. Position all stakeholder ideas, regardless of seniority, as valid hypotheses to be tested. This makes objective data, not job titles, the ultimate arbiter for website changes, fostering a more effective culture.

When building a product with multiple funding customers and stakeholders, use a structured workshop process. Present a proposal, clarify questions, gather reactions, amend, and then vote. This formal process forces alignment and achieves consensus, even with competing interests.