Someone has to decide

Every conga line starts somewhere

We have an epithet ("bossy") for those who assume control without embarrassment, but without these people, society would face certain doom. It only takes one group dinner to understand that not every decision is unanimous. Life is an endlessly forking trail of decisions; to get anywhere worthwhile, someone has to decide.

Occasionally, the decider is an algorithm. "You cut, I pick" is an algorithm that distributes cake. "Democracy" is an algorithm that distributes governance so that one person can decide for a group. You can use nose goes. You can flip a coin. But you can't abdicate every decision to the machine.

Creative work (which is most work) takes a single informed decider made of flesh and bone. In television, executive producer means ultimate decider. She is the destroyer of deadlocks. So is the director of a film. So is a head chef. You'll note the singular nature of the role. Adding more names on a script rarely makes it better.

You don't always have to be "in charge" to be the decider. I worked at a place where the obligation fell to the person closest to the work. The idea was this: let a single mind synthesize all the feedback and choose a single path forward. I've since worked at places where no one wants to commit to a path. Issues are settled by HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion) or by committee or by a metric. It doesn't work, because there is no real expression of choice.

You need someone to decide, because choice is about life and death. The word "decide" comes from the Latin "decidere," which means "to cut off". When opt for the taupe over ecru you are coronating one narrative and halting the bloodline of another. Choice lives at the frontier of order and chaos. It is simultaneously a celebration of what is chosen and a funeral for what is not. The human condition is choice. It is our blessing and our curse.

If you refuse to decide, you are abdicating what it means to be human. You can't do everything, so whether you like it or not, someone has to decide.