Agree on Principles, Not Decisions

You're in your fifth meeting about feature A or B, and everyone's dug in like it's a hostage negotiation. Jackie Bavaro says this is your sign: you don't have a decision problem, you have a principles problem. When you keep relitigating the same argument, it's because you never agreed on the framework for making decisions in the first place.

With your partner, it's the nightly snack negotiation. You say no, they say yes, the kid plays you off each other like divorced parents at Disney World. It's not about the snack—it's that you've never agreed on what you're even optimizing for. Health? Sanity? Not being the bad guy? Pick one, because right now you're just taking turns undermining each other.

Without shared principles, every Goldfish cracker becomes a philosophical debate. With them, you can just point at the agreed-upon framework and say "we decided vegetables before screen time" without reopening the entire parenting constitution. The kid will still argue, but at least you're not also arguing with each other while they eat crackers off the floor.