We say we want teams to own their decisions. But what happens the moment you actually hand people the pen, and they discover how uncomfortable that is?

Two weeks into a new role, Yves Hanoulle, who calls himself a “creative collaboration agent” rather than an agile coach, was working with a group of about forty people split into four colour-named sub-teams. Then an internal customer said any team could pick up a feature, except the yellow one. Yves stopped all work and ran a retro. The group quickly agreed on three teams instead of four, and spent a lot of energy blaming his boss and his absent predecessor for the original split. After lunch, Yves and his boss cleared every chair and table out of the biggest room in the building, and Yves explained the rules: “I would help you make decisions, but I would not make decisions for you.” Walk around in silence, form three circles, and stop moving when you’re happy.

Twenty minutes in, the loudest critic of the original decision pointed at Yves and said: “You should decide.” Yves said no, and reminded him of his own words that morning. What followed was a day of dynamics nobody had spoken about: a cluster of French-speaking colleagues who wouldn’t move, two people who physically blocked a third from joining their circle, a colleague in tears who was then welcomed with open arms, and the two most senior people choosing to split up. They finished at four o’clock with not a line of code written, and Yves believes they delivered more that sprint than if they had carried on.

This conversation explores what it means to decide how to decide without deciding the outcome. We dig into why people say “I hate this decision” when they really mean “I want someone to blame”, what removing speech makes visible, why a co-facilitator mattered, and the question Yves admits he never fully answered: what do you do with the truth a good exercise surfaces?

Key Discussion Points

• [00:01] Anything But the Yellow Team: An internal customer rules out one team, and Yves stops work to run a retro where the blame lands on his boss and predecessor
• [04:00] Chairs Out, Mouths Closed: Booking the biggest room, clearing the furniture, and the rules for walking in silence into three circles
• [06:00] “You Should Decide”: The loudest critic asks Yves to make the call, and Yves hands the morning’s complaint straight back
• [08:00] Language, Mentoring and a Blocked Circle: A French-speaking cluster in a Dutch-speaking group, and two people closing ranks on a third
• [12:00] Refusing the Checklist: Why Yves wouldn’t let forty people agree team criteria up front, even though they hated him for it
• [14:00] Deciding That We Decide: Andrew on the narrow but real authority of choosing how a decision gets made
• [24:00] Making Space: The colleague in tears, a five-minute chat with the boss, and a circle that opened up
• [29:00] The Signal Nobody Followed Up: Andrea asks what Yves did with the block, and why a day like this leaves a facilitator exhausted

Guest: Yves Hanoulle

Hosts: Andrew Harmel-Law, Andrea Magnorsky, Kenny Schwegler