IAM2883 – Stop Waiting for Everyone to Approve the Move

The Trap of Universal Approval

A pervasive roadblock for many scaling innovators is losing valuable time trying to architect decisions that absolutely nobody will criticize. When you are actively engineering a brand-new space, universal validation from the market or your peers is simply unavailable. In this episode, pulling high-level insights from Jeffrey, television host and CEO of the C-Suite Network on episode 78 of the I AM CEO podcast, we break down why you must stop waiting for everyone to approve your next move—and how to use your instincts to build momentum and help others grow.

The Strategy Pillar: Speed as a Feedback Mechanism

True execution within the Strategy Pillar proves that corporate stalling is rarely caused by a true lack of organizational data; it is caused by a desire to eliminate every conceivable objection before moving. Founders get trapped continuously adjusting their offers, rethinking brand names, over-analyzing competitors, and collecting endless outside opinions until the path forward becomes completely blurred.

While gathering insights is crucial, there is a definitive threshold where listening mutates into strategic avoidance. True strategic alignment means recognizing when your company already possesses enough baseline information to execute a calculated experiment, leveraging tiny bets to pull real data from the marketplace rather than endlessly debating a concept in your head.

Dismantling Fear in a Business Suit

The core takeaway for any CEO is the executive mandate to stop trying to make your next operational move immune to outside judgment. Moving with high velocity does not mean acting recklessly or abandoning accountability; true leadership requires staying open, approachable, and fully responsible for the outcomes of your experiments.

Slowing down and waiting frequently disguises itself as responsible corporate caution, when in reality, it is often just fear wearing a business suit. Ask yourself this defining question: “What specific operational decision are you delaying simply because you are trying to control how everyone will react to it?”. Transitioning away from a culture of permission-seeking and stepping into rapid, real-world testing is the ultimate lever required to unlock massive scale and dominate your market.

Previous episode: https://iamceo.co/iam2882-the-power-of-using-team-collaboration-to-build-true-progress-and-help-others-thrive/

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Transcription:

Gresham Harkless 00:00
Builders can lose a lot of time trying to make decisions that nobody will criticize. But when you're creating something new, universal approval is not usually available. That's what really stood out to me in episode number 78 of the I Am CEO Podcast with Jeffrey. Jeffrey is a television and podcast host, former Fortune 100 CMO best selling author, speaker and chairman and CEO of the C Suite Network. And his CEO nugget was as direct as you. You can say it. Go faster and quit worrying so much about what everyone else thinks.

If you're building something meaningful, you're in the right place. This is the I Am CEO Podcast. I'm gresh, and for over a decade I've had the honor and the privilege of Learning directly from CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners just like you on how to build. After recording more than 1600 episodes, one one thing has become clear. Success isn't about following someone else's blueprint. And as I like to say on the show, if you run your own race, you can't lose, even when you feel the journey should be a straight and linear path. What I've come to find out is success is a lot more like a plate of spaghetti. So this special segment and episode I'm starting to curate and share some CEO hacks and CEO nuggets that I've been dying to share. Drawn from thousands of episodes with phenomenal guests that have provided awesome value on the show, but also my 10 years of business experience as well too. These lessons are designed to strengthen the foundational principles that every business is built on and guided by a simple equation that we always go back to with our content. Visibility plus resources times connections equals success. This is practical wisdom you can apply almost immediately, so be sure to check out the show notes for more resources and next steps on how to level up. And of course, enjoy this special episode of the I Am CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 01:51
Builders can lose a lot of time trying to make decisions that nobody will criticize, but when you're creating something new, universal approval is not usually available. That's what really stood out to me in episode number 78 of the I Am CEO Podcast with Jeffrey. Jeffrey is a television and podcast host, former Fortune 100 CMO best selling author, speaker and chairman and CEO of the C Suite Network. And his CEO nugget was as direct as you. You can say it. Go faster and quit worrying so much about what everyone else thinks. And that's the idea that I would run with. See, what happens is a lot of builders are not stuck because they lack information. They're stuck because they're trying to eliminate every possible objection before they actually move. How does this come out? They adjust their offer again and again and again. Again. They rethink their name. They wait to make a call. They study what competitors are doing. They ask five or more people for feedback. And every new opinion makes the decision less and less clear. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely wisdom in listening, but there's also a point where listening becomes avoidance. In the episode in the interview, Jeffrey and I talked about listening more closely to the inner voice assistant faster. For builders, that doesn't necessarily mean acting recklessly or ignoring data. It means recognizing when the business already has enough information for the next experiment. And I love that word experiment, because the idea is that you don't have to go broke by making these decisions. A lot of times you can make them in a less catastrophic way or less. You can make the tiny bets. Tiny bets are allowing you that opportunity to kind of get data and information from that experiment so that you can see if you can lean more into it or if maybe you need to pivot and change. This comes up in the strategy pillar. Strategy is not just about predicting every outcome correctly. It's about making a clear choice, acting on it, learning from what happens, and adjusting as needed. And here's the reality. Sometimes speed is valuable because it creates feedback. You learn more from putting the offer in front of 10 people than from spending another month privately perfecting it. You learn more from testing the message than from debating it in your head. Jeffrey also talked around leadership being something as. As being something related to being open, approachable, and responsible. Importance is because moving faster does not remove accountability. You still own the decision and what you learned from it. And here's the nugget I would take and carry with me. Stop trying to make your next move immune from judgment. Make it clear enough to just go out and test it. And here's a question worth thinking about a little bit more. What decision are you delaying because you're trying to control what. What everyone will think about? Because what happens is sometimes waiting feels responsible, but other times, maybe a lot of times it's just fear wearing a business suit. If you know you've been overthinking a move, you're ready to test. This convers conversation with Jeffrey is definitely one worth visiting.