Our New Committee on Reducing Committees

The committee will study why decisions take so long. Its first decision was to postpone deciding how to measure decision length.

Governance begins where practical action ends. I convened the appropriate people, distributed papers thick enough to imply preparation and established a process through which every conclusion could be responsibly delayed until it appeared inevitable.

The inquiry then acquired the seriousness that comes from giving it a project code. Membership was capped at nine until twelve essential observers requested voting rights. We solved this by creating a nonvoting voting tier with refreshments. A task force opened a shared folder, immediately creating the institutional memory required to forget who suggested it.

We tested the proposition under conditions best described as controlled-adjacent. The first subcommittee defines committee. The second defines reduction. A joint working group will determine whether either definition creates jurisdictional overlap. The spreadsheet accepted these results without protest and was therefore listed as an approving stakeholder.

Governance Theater preserves the rituals by which groups appear to decide things. Agendas, gavels and water glasses are arranged until authority becomes visible; the actual decision may then enter quietly through a side door wearing business casual.

Consultation followed. We commissioned a dashboard showing meeting hours saved. Maintaining the dashboard now requires a weekly meeting, two pre-reads and a quarterly dashboard-governance retreat. All objections were entered into the record in a column narrow enough to preserve momentum.

The board’s final position was both firm and capable of revision without notice. Early results are promising: no new committees have formed outside the committee structure established to monitor unauthorized committee formation. Implementation begins once Procurement identifies a vendor willing to invoice the concept.

We remain encouraged by the volume of binders.

The chair thanked everyone for their alignment, especially those who had not expressed any. Minutes were approved in advance, action items were distributed downhill and the next meeting was scheduled to determine whether this one occurred.