Sense and decide
Widen With Stakes
Bring more people into a decision as the stakes rise, inverting the usual instinct to shrink the room.
Borrowed from the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which involves more of its members in the decisions that matter most. Read the original source.
Changes a rule or role · Minutes to start · Anyone on the team can start it · Start here for this problem
Try this first
On the next big call, bring in a few more relevant people than you normally would, and take their input seriously.
Use it when
The biggest decisions are being narrowed to the top few.
Skip it when
Widening has limits. Some decisions need speed, some involve things you cannot share broadly, and not every added voice adds anything. Match the width to the stakes and to relevance.
How to introduce it
Invert the instinct. Instead of narrowing the biggest decisions to a small senior group, bring more people in as the stakes climb. On the biggest calls, more perspectives catch more risk and build more ownership. Widening strengthens a decision.
How to show up
Widen without letting the decision dissolve into a crowd. More voices, still structured. Bring in the perspectives that add something and keep the decision moving.
How long it takes
More time on high-stakes decisions to involve more people. The payoff is fewer missed risks.
What makes it hard
It feels slow and messy, and leaders worry it dilutes their authority, so frame it as strengthening the call rather than surrendering it. Unmanaged, more voices stall a decision, so keep the structure as you widen.
What it looks like when it's working
Big decisions pull in more perspectives, catch risks a small group would have missed, and carry broader ownership. The highest-stakes calls still happening in the smallest rooms means the instinct never inverted.
How long until it sticks
Expect several high-stakes decisions before widening with stakes feels natural rather than counterintuitive.
How you know it stuck
The team's reflex on a high-stakes call is to bring in more relevant perspectives.
The idea behind it
High-stakes decisions often need more relevant perspectives, not fewer, because the cost of a missed risk is larger.
Where it comes from
The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra's conductorless model. Deliberately involve more people as a decision's stakes rise. Orpheus inverts the usual pyramid: the more important the decision to the organization, the more people are involved in it. And involving more people strengthens the result rather than diluting it.
Why it matters for senior teams
Seniority can make this problem worse because people are less likely to challenge a high-status colleague