Who Needs All That Corporate Hype? Why Buy-In is Overrated and Execution is Everything

Yesterday someone asked me: “How did you grow from 2,500 properties to 5,500 in less than a decade?”

My answer was brutally simple: We had leadership that didn’t chase consensus. They made decisions and asked us to do our job - execute. No committees. No consultants mapping out every breath. No endless alignment sessions. Just a capable team that wanted to make it happen.

That’s how change really works. This “buy-in” idea must have been born when “gentle parenting” was introduced.

Now compare that with corporate “change management.” The industry has built an entire circus around it: committees, “celebrating small wins,” motivational success stories, buying-in speeches, alignment meetings, ambassadors, branded goodies, corporate day-outs…

Every time we studied it at university, I kept wondering: Who are these people that need so much hype to simply do the job they’re paid for? I think they are the ones who need personal trainers in the gym otherwise they wouldn’t have the discipline to execute.

Netflix gets it right with their “Captain Model.” One person owns the call: gather context, hear dissent, then decide. The rest? Disagree, commit, move. Done. For every significant decision, they identify an informed captain who's responsible for making a judgment call on the right way ahead. Then different teams, each led by their own informed captain, implement the decision.

Sounds radical, but it’s not. It’s just called GSD - getting shit done without the circus.

Don’t even get me started on the “buy-in” narrative. People forget that the ultimate buy-in happened the day we all signed our contracts. We agreed to work for the company and to execute on its goals and instructions.

Further “buy-ins” end once the decision-making process for projects or tasks is complete - after debate, discussion, and due diligence from every stakeholder. From that point, grown adults shouldn’t need constant pep talks or corporate cheerleading to get things done. This isn’t kindergarten.

Yet case studies often glorify the opposite: employees who resist, businesses bending over backwards to get them on board, or managers and leaders who need to be “won over.” Frankly, that’s nonsense. Who gave employees the impression they own the business? Whether we personally like or agree with the decision is irrelevant. Our job is to execute. If someone refuses to do that, it’s not a “buy-in problem” - it’s a performance issue. And it should be treated as such.

But, I blame businesses for creating this mess. Organizations are, by nature, autocratic, and they should be. That doesn’t mean dictatorship. It means transparency, clarity, presenting the problem and possible solutions, seeking feedback, considering context… but at the end of the day, leaders must make a call. Whether people like it or not, the decision gets made, the team moves forward, and leaders own the outcome.

And that’s where perhaps it breaks down. Too often leaders outsource decision-making - hiding behind committees, consultants, “consensus” or “buy-in” - because they’re afraid of being wrong, afraid of accountability, or simply more interested in protecting their job than moving the business forward. The obsession with “buy-in” often comes down to fear of firing the people who oppose change. Leaders are too scared to remove those blocking change, so instead they waste time and resources begging and convincing people who have no intention of getting on board.

Change itself isn’t difficult - the circus we build around it is what makes it hard. We’ve convinced ourselves that change requires time, mindset change, consensus, alignment, universal buy-in, and a perfect plan. But the truth is simple: change happens the moment you decide and start doing things differently.

In fact, change is happening constantly we just don’t notice it. Back in university, my psychology professor put it perfectly: change only becomes real when our brain pays attention to it.

So here’s the paradox: if you actually want change, stop obsessing over it. Don’t brand it, don’t hype it, don’t make it a production or a circus. Just start doing things differently, transition people into the new way of working, and skip the drama. STOP THE FUSS!

Maybe what change management professionals are selling is exactly what makes change efforts fail.

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