The quiet click of a wheel on a team call

We were on our usual Friday check-in, the grid of faces a little tired. The question of who would take the lead on the new client presentation had been floating for a few minutes, with that familiar, hesitant silence. No one wanted to volunteer, but no one wanted to assign it either.

When the conversation starts to circle

You could feel the slight tension, the unspoken calculus of who was busiest or who owed a turn. I suggested we just spin for it. A couple of people chuckled, but it was a relief. It wasn't about avoiding the work; it was about avoiding the awkwardness of deciding.I pulled up the wheel on my screen and shared it. I typed in the names of the four people who were realistically available for it. For a second, I wondered if it seemed like I was shirking my duty as the lead to make a proper decision.

The spin that settles things

I clicked the button, and we all watched the colored segments blur together. There's something about that visual, that shared focus on a spinning wheel, that just drains the debate right out of the room. When it slowed and landed on Priya's name, she gave a small, good-natured sigh."Alright, I'm on it," she said. And that was it. No discussion, no second-guessing. Everyone just accepted the outcome. We moved on to the next agenda item, and the energy in the call actually felt lighter.It wasn't magic. It was just a neutral mechanism that took the burden of choice off our shoulders, individually and collectively. The fairness was in the randomness itself.

What it leaves behind

After the call, I realized the real win wasn't just assigning a task. It was that we skipped the whole song and dance of perceived fairness. No one had to feel singled out or argue their case. The wheel did the talking, and we could all just get back to work.