Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

There’s an old saying “too many cooks in the kitchen” that describes an organization overpopulated with leaders or decision makers.

I just have to ask…how many is too many?

While I would never discourage the use of advisors, gurus or experts, I must believe that at one point or another there are too many hands in the pot, too many conflicting opinions and too much advice. So what’s the point of oversaturation and how is that measured?

You don’t, after all, want to dilute your brand. On the other hand, you can’t expect one advisor to be the all-knowing, universally applicable phenom (although I’m sure there are many out there who would like to claim that they are).

So the question I’m trying to ask here is: what’s the threshold? Surely it’s different for every company and every situation, but a list of hirable experts in my mind seems like an endless roll call of industries.

I’ve heard that back in the days when sailors still traversed vast uncharted territory they would either carry one clock with them or three to tell the time. After all, if you had two and one was wrong, how could you tell?

I think in the end it boils down to this—you don’t have to know it all, you just have to know where to turn when you need the help.