The Efficiency of the "No"
Your time is too valuable to spend it stroking someone else's ego by being inefficient.
I see it all the time in startups that are trying to grow up.
The founder is controlling, relentless, and still trying to run the show like it’s five guys in a garage.
They want you to "yell at the guys more."
They want you to be "cutthroat."
They think leadership is a volume knob.
It’s not.
If you have to yell to get results, you’ve already lost the room.
Real leadership is about distinctions.
It’s about pattern recognition.
It’s about seeing that the thing that got you to
When you’re moving from startup to corporate, your biggest enemy isn't the competition. It's your own inefficiency.
If you're sitting in a meeting thinking,
This is a waste of my fucking time, it probably is.
If you're sitting one-on-one with a new hire because your boss told you to, but you could have brought four other guys in and trained them all at once, you’re choosing to be slow.
Stop playing the politics of "busy" and start playing the game of "effective."
Your time is too valuable to spend it stroking someone else's ego by being inefficient.
Let them have the control if they want it, it’s less on your plate.
But use that extra space to build a system that actually works.
Are you holding onto "busy work" because it feels safer than setting a boundary and being judged on your actual output?