Stop Approving Decisions (Do This Instead)
- Bonny Morlak
- Dec 17, 2025
- 3 min read
Stop Approving Decisions Before Scaling Breaks Your Company
At some point, every founder notices the same thing.
The company used to move fast. Decisions were quick. Energy was high.
Then the team grew. Money came in. And suddenly, everything slowed down.
Most founders assume this is just the cost of scale. It is not.
In reality, scaling often breaks because founders do not stop approving decisions.
Why Approval Mode Slows Everything Down
When your company is small, approving decisions works. You are close to the product. You know the context. You can move quickly.
As the company grows, approval mode turns into friction.
Every decision waits. Teams hesitate. You become the bottleneck without realizing it.
Many founders sense this and try to fix it by delegating more. That creates a different problem.
Why Full Delegation Is Not the Answer
When founders stop approving decisions completely, quality often drops.
The product feels watered down. Standards blur. Ownership fades.
Founders then swing back to approval mode to fix quality issues. The cycle repeats.
This is why most scale-ups feel stuck between speed and quality.
The solution is not more approval or more delegation. It is stopping approval altogether.
Stop Approving Decisions and Switch to Veto Mode
The shift is simple but uncomfortable.
Instead of approving decisions, everything is considered approved by default. Unless you veto it.
This is what it means to stop approving decisions.
In veto mode:
Teams move without waiting
Speed increases naturally
The founder focuses on quality assurance, not permission
A veto must be explained. Not based on taste. Not based on mood.
It requires a business reason.
This creates clarity instead of fear.
How Stopping Approval Changes Team Behavior
When founders stop approving decisions, something important happens.
Teams start thinking like owners. They prepare better proposals. They move faster because they can.
You are no longer driving the company from the back seat. You are setting direction, not steering every turn.
If veto mode feels terrifying, that signals something else.
When Stopping Approval Reveals a Hiring Problem
If you do not trust your team to make decisions, that is not a process issue. It is a hiring issue.
Every driver you hire replaces a passenger.
This is painful because many passengers are early team members. People who were loyal. People who worked through chaos and uncertainty.
But scaling requires different skills.
Stopping approval decisions forces clarity about who can drive in this phase of the business.
Stop Approving Decisions to Grow as a Founder
This shift is not just operational. It is personal.
To stop approving decisions, founders must grow too. They must let go of control without abandoning standards.
This is not about cutting people. It is about optimizing the team for success.
When founders hold on too long:
High performers disengage
Teams lose trust
Investors lose confidence
Stopping approval decisions protects the company and the people in it.
Final Thought
Scaling does not fail because founders stop caring. It fails because they keep approving decisions for too long.
If your company feels slower the bigger it gets, start here.
Stop approving decisions. Switch to veto mode. And let your company move again.
What’s Next?
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