The Committee Has Decided...

Duck! Out of the way of that lame duck opinion. And don’t look at those studious nods in return. There! Another airy opinion. Duck! And look! Look at the heavy pondering air that Ponder Head is wearing. Probably contemplating his mid-morning tea.

Been here before haven’t you – at The Committee Meeting. You'll know it by various aliases.

Ah! And you’ve always helplessly watched your idea die a prolonged, agonizing death as the Committee People gleefully brandished their opinion like sabers, intent on the kill. Imagine what would have happened if da Vinci had left his ruminations and sketches to the Committee People. Or if any of the others of his ilk had submitted to the Committee...

A Committee

- does not have gut feel and no gut either
- wants to play safe, very-very safe
- is actually a stage for faux brilliance
- is often an arena for now-I'm-gonna-get-you cunning, couched in smug officialdom
- is a fools theater of I-told-you-so exchanges, both verbal and mute
- is afraid to be wrong
- always passes the buck

And where there's passing the buck, there's mediocrity. There's lethargy. There's inertia and no energy, ever. You know it. We all know it. And what do we do about it? The answer is simple.

Discourage committees. If an idea is worth the while, no matter how radical, let the originator run with it. Let him or her run the whole mile with it. And then if they have to take the brunt. Let them. If nothing else, they had the courage. Give them their due. For it's on the wings of such (fringe) souls that an organisation finds its voice, and garners respect when all the while it had been an also ran.

For nothing venture, nothing hath. And Committees don't venture.