The quiet after the wheel spins

We needed a fair way to assign the quarterly audit. The spreadsheet felt too cold, and a direct ask would have put someone on the spot. So I brought up the idea of a random wheel during our stand-up.

Setting it up felt procedural

I pulled up the tool on the shared screen. The names of the five team members who had the bandwidth went onto the digital slices. Everyone watched the list populate, a silent acknowledgment of the process.There was a brief, almost formal discussion about the parameters. We agreed the assignment was for the initial research phase only. It was important that the wheel felt like a starting point, not a verdict.

The spin and its aftermath

I clicked the button. The wheel whirred through a blur of colors before slowing to a stop on Maya’s name. A couple of soft ‘oh’s’ escaped, more surprise than anything else.Maya herself just nodded slowly, already mentally rearranging her week. The reaction was quiet, a collective absorption of the result rather than any debate. It was done.People began to shift in their chairs, the meeting’s focus naturally moving to the next agenda item. The decision, having come from the wheel, carried a neutral weight. No one had to defend or propose it.

What the wheel left behind

It removed the burden of choice from any one person. My role was just to facilitate the spin, not to influence the outcome.

The unspoken relief

There’s a particular tension that dissolves when chance takes over. You could see it in the way shoulders relaxed just a fraction after the result landed.