When CEOs Stop Delaying And Start Deciding

What if one honest question could change the course of your company? We dive straight into the hard edge of leadership: the unseen costs of waiting, the myth that misaligned teams “eventually sync,” and the moment a CEO realized their top staff could not take the organization where it needed to go. From there, we get practical—how to set nonnegotiables, make tough personnel calls with clarity and care, and turn good intentions into time-bound action that protects momentum.

We share the coaching question that reliably unlocks movement: how hard are you willing to fight and by when? Naming your ultimate boundary—up to replacing a leader, going to the board, or risking your own role—clarifies conviction. Setting a date transforms conviction into a plan. With that line on the calendar, you can work backward, define milestones, and stop confusing busyness with progress. We also unpack the nine-box talent review, why it only works when it drives action, and how leaving underperformers in the same box for years erodes standards and drains executive energy.

This conversation is a candid, story-driven guide for CEOs, founders, and senior leaders who want to move faster without losing their humanity. You’ll learn how to frame decisions so fear loosens its grip, how to distinguish patience from drift, and how to say no in order to unlock a bigger yes to strategy, culture, and results. If you’ve been “kicking the can,” consider this your nudge to draw the line, act with purpose, and give your team the clarity they deserve.

Transcript

Cold Open And Banter

Karman 0:30

Good morning, Scott and Tammy.

Scott 0:36

Good morning, Karman.

Speaker 1 0:39

Not that we could understand you, Mr. Burgmeyer.

Scott 0:44

That was good morning, Karman.

Karman 0:47

You're most enthusiastic. Yeah. So listeners, if you missed us last week, I pulled.

Scott 0:55

Come on, let me do this line of cocaine.

Karman 0:57

Good morning, Karman. I promised that I was gonna bring the low and subtle low-key introduction someday so that Scott could bring the energy. And that's his version of bringing energy.

Speaker 1 1:13

Yeah. And then you not only he doesn't swear this time, but this time he's taking drugs. It's he's such a good role model. Such a good role model.

Scott 1:22

Wait, it's notice what that was not something we said leaders should stop.

Speaker 1 1:30

Okay, Scott does not do drugs. He is just messing around. He acts like he does drugs sometimes, but he actually doesn't, just in case there's any question. Versus Steve Jobs, who admits in his you know biography that we should all do some kind of psychedelic.

Scott 1:48

I wouldn't do lines. I I mean I would do black, you know, black tar heroin if I was gonna do something.

Speaker 1 1:53

Wow. I don't even know what black tar heroin is, so I don't know that you need to explain it, but it's very interesting.

Scott 2:01

A bunch of our listeners are like, you cannot joke about this. You know, some family member will have something. I'm sorry. Truly, I am sorry for making fun of something that can be of very serious nature.

Karman 2:15

But that is Scott's MO, right? It's totally my MO. Take something that could should be serious and make it ridiculous.

Scott 2:25

It's called Gallo, isn't it called Gallo's humor?

Speaker 1 2:28

Gallo's humor. Gallo's humor. And it's like you know, it's a good thing we don't have a human resources department, just just so y'all know.

Scott 2:39

And I'll tell you the same thing I've told HR people before. It is only harassment if someone complains and I don't stop.

Speaker 1 2:48

True. Hey, wait a minute. I've been with you for a lot of years. I've complained for a lot of years. You've never stopped.

Scott 2:57

Yeah, you're not HR.

Speaker 1 3:00

And I've only had the boss of me. That is true, and I have only complained when you do it in front of clients. In a podcast, it's completely different, though. I'm cool.

Scott 3:16

Yeah, it's in front of all of our clients.

Speaker 1 3:19

Yeah, just one. It's just different, it's totally different to me.

Scott 3:24

I mean, I you know, it's just you ask sometimes what I do before you know. I'm I might scroll and and watch a couple of my favorite comedians, Jimmy Carr and in the get a good chuckle.

Speaker 1 3:36

My gosh, sometimes so my husband does that before he goes to sleep. I've never understood that, but like it's his favorite thing to do right before he goes to sleep, and he starts laughing and laughing and laughing, and then he goes to bed happy. Like, okay, whatever. So sometimes I think I've married you, Scott. Thank heaven it's not really you, but you and my husband have a lot in common. We do, mm-hmm. Yeah, that's kind of fun too.

Pivot To Leadership Focus

Karman 4:03

The two of you get along. I have no segue from that. I'm just like usually I'm pretty good at segues. Usually, you know, I can kind of wrap something around to like, and here's what we're really going to talk about today, but abrupt, abrupt change of topic. Got it. Boom. Boom. When you guys work with CEOs, a lot of times one of the things that you're helping them do is set priorities and communicate priorities and also figure out for their own sanity, like what they should be saying no to. Because you know, when you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else, and vice versa. So my question today is what are some examples of really powerful things that you've seen leaders say no to that have really changed their ability to lead?

Scott 5:05

Clarification question for when you say change their ability to leave, like they the aha moment, or is it I'm thinking that like it hurt them or it helped them, or either?

Karman 5:16

I would say either. I was sort of thinking help, but actually hurt makes a better story, probably. So, you know, as long as we're clear about the outcome. Yeah.

The Power Of Saying No

Speaker 1 5:29

I think if I look back, Scott and I and the team, we've been doing this a long time. We have conversations at the CEO level weekly. I mean, that's a really normal thing for us. And a lot of the conversations that we would have, I would tell you are not memorable. And and I don't mean that in a in a negative way. It's just we're just dealing with kind of ordinary stuff. And so over the years, those things they it's like that's not gonna stand out.

Karman 6:02

Yeah, you're walk, you're walking with a CEO in a regular on a regular basis, not just popping in for an amazing moment.

A CEO’s Team Reckoning

Coaching Questions That Catalyze Change

Speaker 1 6:13

Yeah, and and so there are a lot of just you know, it's slow growth, or it's you know, it's very incremental. And so there are going to be, at least in my career specifically, just a few moments that were, I would say, crystal clear in my head exactly what happened in that moment. While those are, you know, something that you think about a lot, those slow growth, small things also make a difference, right? But sometimes there is that aha, like everything changes. And for me, one of them that stands out is when I was working with the CEO, we were probably six months into our relationship. And I simply asked the question about this person's staff. So the other members sitting in the C-suite. And I said, I just want you to imagine for a minute, if this was your team from here to the end of your career, what does that look like? The answer that that CEO had was one of absolute horror. Okay, because it was interesting earlier in the conversation, we had been talking about marriage and divorce. And the CEO was divorced. I asked when we had that conversation, one of the things that they said was, I just woke up one morning and I recognized that I had knew that I could not be with this person every morning for the rest of my life. So we just had this conversation about divorce, and here we were, and this person was really struggling with their immediate staff and had been very resistant about making changes there and felt very strongly that those individuals would eventually catch up, eventually align, eventually work well as a team, all those things where you kind of have hope, right? And yet in the six months we'd been working, it was very, very, very obvious that they were entrenched and had no desire to align, work well together to be a team. And so when I asked the question that way, their whole life changed, right? They finally had the courage to do something that is really, really hard. And you know, we don't advocate for firing people all of the time. However, when you have the wrong leaders, an organization cannot grow beyond its leaders. And if you have the wrong people in powerful positions in places where they are making daily decisions, if those folks are not aligned with the CEO, and if those folks don't see that vision, mission, that purpose, they don't they're not out front, they're keeping you from being able to achieve that, you do need to make a very difficult decision. And those folks will probably find a job someplace else where they are better suited, where they can add more value there, but they're not adding value for the organization. So that for me, it was that question, which was like, I don't know that I've ever asked that question any other time with any other person in my in my entire life when it comes to someone at work. But that particular question, that particular aha light bulb moment, how those things connected, and then the outcome that allowed that CEO to over time one by one make that decision, clean house at the top of the organization, and then move that organization very quickly into its next growth phase. That was that was a really powerful moment for that person and powerful moment for me as the person who got to walk that path with them.

Scott 10:07

Yeah, nice. It tell me it's interesting. You're both of ours is a question.

unknown 10:12

Ha!

Speaker 1 10:13

Well, that says the power of coaching right there, right?

Scott 10:16

Yeah. And so I have used this question a handful of times, and it's and it's a it's really a two-parter. And I've used it either if leaders are complaining, right? And they're saying, Oh, I have all of this stuff, and or if they're in a tough, tough situation, I ask, how hard are you willing to fight? How far will you go to solve this? Are you, you know, are you willing to terminate someone? Are you willing to go to the board? Are you willing to to get fired? And then if you're like, hey, I'm willing to drop the gauntlet, I'm willing to make this really, really okay, when? Like, when's your you know, that's two weeks from now, two months from now, 18 months from now? Because if if you can draw that line, my experience is if you can draw that line, now you can work it backwards. Okay, here's the place where I am done. And if I'm not seeing whatever by this line, I have to make this really tough call.

Speaker 1 11:26

I am I'm actually giggling because Scott did that to me not too many years ago.

Scott 11:35

I wasn't gonna call that out. You've actually done that to you.

Setting Lines And Deadlines

Speaker 1 11:39

You've actually done that to me twice in in our 20 years, 20 plus years. You've actually asked me those two questions twice, right? And in one, I had to, because there was my line, and I had to actually then make the decision and move forward, and my whole life turned upside down and changed everything. Okay. And in the second one, I was like, dang it, I'm gonna get this thing done before that so that we never hit that line. And I did it the second time. But that is hysterical, Scott. I would not have even, I would not have even said that that was one. But you're right, you actually did that to me, let alone our clients.

Karman 12:29

The other thing I think is super interesting in both of your answers is that time is sort of an in, you know, an implied piece of it. How long are you willing to put up with this? And that's a question I ask in coaching, not quite that way, but quite often, you know, do you still want to be thinking about this a month from now? Do you still want to be thinking about this six months from now? Yeah.

Scott 12:58

And Carvin, I think I think that type thing is really important because as leaders, there are moments where we all get frustrated. And then that that's okay. Or it's okay that, you know, hey, my staff person insert name here. Like, hey, they're struggling, or and or they're not trained yet, or whatever that is. I get it. Okay. What are you going to do about it? Are you in action and are you in purposeful action? Because if you're not, then you're just whiny.

Action Over Frustration

Speaker 1 13:31

So last week I told you guys about the HOA, you know, people running for the board and the question pieces. There was one of the people running for the board, a gale, named Kim. And one of the questions that came up is, What do you think that the next board, right, when this comes together, needs to do differently? I thought it was a great question. And Kim, her answer was so clean and so vibrant, vibrant for me. She said, make decisions and uh think about how often leaders kick the can down the road. And then you wake up and it's six months, a year, 18 months, two years later, right? And you're still talking about or dealing with the same issue. And I think that's why the time piece is so important. Because if we're still six weeks talking about the same issue, let alone six months, two years, how much time are we wasting in what I would call a sit-and-spin? Going through the same information, complaining about the same thing, not taking action on it. As an organization, we are wasting that precious resource. We don't have all the time in the world. And sometimes we just need to make the call, learn, grow from that call, move forward in that particular spot. I do like when, Scott, your second part of that. When it's put a let's put a pin in it, okay? So that you start to understand, yeah, it's reasonable for you to need to think some things through. It's reasonable for you to give some things a certain amount of time to get from here to there. What's not reasonable is letting it go beyond a time period when it now becomes redundant complaining, not taking action.

Scott 15:27

Yes, right. And I think it's also important for us to remember that kicking the can down the road is a decision. Sometimes we forget that. That if I say I'm gonna wait, on that is a decision. You've made a decision to wait, and then coming back, and is that a good decision? Was that the right decision? And sometimes waiting is the right decision. Sometimes waiting is a bad decision.

Kicking The Can Is A Choice

The Nine Box Wake-Up Call

Consequences Of Avoiding Decisions

Speaker 1 15:54

We have another client that we do a nine box with every year. Folks, if you don't know what nine box is, we go through staff and we're really saying, where are our people who are performing below the line? Where are people who are performing at the line? Where are our people performing above the line? And saying, All right, we need to make sure that we have plans for so that we are actually, using Scott's word, purposefully taking action with staff. And this organization that I'm thinking of, we had done a nine box two years in a row. Now we're here for our third time. And the same two people were on this list that they were below the line. And we had had a conversation because in nine box, not only do we understand what box they're in, but those boxes have things that say, in this, if you're in this box, we need to do this. If we're in this box, we need to do that. These two people were in a box that said, Hey, if we don't, if they don't grow, they're gonna go. Three years. And so when I came in, sat down, like looking at their nine box, I'm like, hey, and they're like, you don't have to say it. We know we've not done our job. That box, and the people are in this box, we're supposed to do this, we haven't done it. And I said, You haven't done it for a year. And they're like, Yep, and we're gonna take care of that this week. And it was like, you know, sometimes if you don't give people a deadline, if you don't hold up the mirror and show them, they will kick it down the road, but it's not intentionally kicking it down the road, it is unintentionally kicking it down the road. You go to sleep and you wake up and it's three years later. Yeah. And to me, that's at an executive level, that's unacceptable. That's below the line behavior, right? And so to me, I mean, I would look at that executive and say, you are squandering the resources of a of your organization. They don't like it when I say that. Okay. But to me, that's what they're doing. They're running away from a decision by being busy on other things. And you see people do that in their lives too. Got messy lives, and they keep running away from those things that keep happening to themselves because they're not managing at that moment the important thing. So they run and get busy doing something else, and then their life gets messier and messier and messier and messy. Same thing happens in organizations, yeah, right? Only on a bigger scale, and it impacts more people.