Spoilers for Free Guy (2021) ahead.
In my last post, I asked who holds the hammer in your firm. Then I remembered a movie that makes the case better than I did.
In Free Guy, Antwan runs Soonami Studios. He's the founder, the CEO, and the head developer. Nobody can tell him no.
Here's what that looked like:
- Compliance was optional. He built his game on code he didn't own.
- The expert was overruled. When his engineer refused to reset the servers, he rebooted them himself, then fired the engineer.
- Speed beat readiness. He rushed to launch a sequel and sent an unfinished character into the live game to fix a problem.
- The launch flopped. The sequel shipped buggy, and the theft came out.
The point isn't the movie. It's the pattern. The person with the most authority had no one above the rules, and every shortcut looked reasonable in the moment.
Your firm's version is quieter: "Skip the review, the client wants it today." "Use that tool, it's faster." "We'll document it later."
What fixing it looks like
The fix isn't a thicker rulebook. It's a few small structures that don't depend on how the founder feels that day.
Put a name next to every rule that matters, in writing. Not "the team," a person.
Give someone the standing right to say "not yet," and agree in advance that it holds, even against you. If the person with the final say can quietly override a control, it isn't a control. It's a courtesy.
Make bypassing visible. Sometimes the shortcut really is the right call. The goal isn't to ban it. It's that the shortcut gets noted, with a reason, so it's a decision and not a habit.
None of this is about slowing a good firm down. Done well, it's what lets you move fast without betting on one person's judgment every single time.
Try it this week: write down the last time a rule got bypassed to hit a deadline. Who could have stopped it? If the answer is nobody, you've found your gap.
If you can't name who could say no to you and have it stick, that's an ownership gap. Message me and we'll talk through what fixing it would take.