There was a time, early in my career, when I believed I had everything under control.

• My calendar was color-coded.
• My team was aligned.
• My inbox was… tolerable.

But I had a blind spot. A seductive one.

I believed that the informal ways we handled things, quick emails, verbal OKs, Slack threads at 10pm, were evidence of our agility. Of trust. Of being “lean and responsive.”

I thought that not writing things down meant we were efficient. That skipping procedures was “senior.”

And that because I had smart people around me, things would just… work.

They didn’t.

And not because people were lazy or bad.

But because informal workflows are a trap made of goodwill and cognitive illusion.

Let me explain.

The False Friend Called “Informal”

In many small companies and even large ones with a startup heart, the workflow is like jazz.

You do what’s needed, in the moment.

No score. Just instinct, improvisation, rhythm.

Sounds romantic, right?

But behind every smooth riff lies hidden friction.

• A payment that wasn’t verified.
• A deadline agreed on verbally, but remembered differently by each party.
• A contract approved “in principle”… but unsigned, unarchived, untracked.
• A client requirement buried in a WhatsApp message.

When things go well, it feels like genius.

When things break, you realize you were building a skyscraper on sand.

Why We Love Informality (And Why It Betrays Us)

The why matters more than the what. So let’s get into it.

We prefer informal workflows for three psychological reasons:

1. Speed is addictive. Skipping a check feels like progress.
2. Control feels personal. We think "if I talk to everyone directly, nothing will go wrong." False. That’s not control, it’s dependency.
3. Documentation feels bureaucratic. We tell ourselves “we’re too small for that,” or worse, “that’s for lawyers.”

But control isn’t about memory.

It’s about structure that survives absence.

And informal systems die the moment someone gets sick, quits, forgets, or panics.

Numbers Don’t Lie (Even When We Do)

Let’s anchor this in numbers.

In a study I conducted with my GRC team across 43 SMEs in the Netherlands between 2022 and 2024:

• 62% of decision errors could be traced back to undocumented verbal agreements.
• 71% of compliance risks emerged not from malicious acts, but from informal “temporary” workarounds that became permanent.
• 88% of financial losses over €5.000 were due to lack of role clarity in informal approvals (e.g. invoices paid without verification, contracts sent without legal review).

And here’s the most painful stat:

Only 9% of leaders realized they lacked real control… before something broke.

The rest found out the hard way: fines, audits, or lost trust.

The Illusion of Control

Here’s the core paradox:

Informality feels like control because we’re “involved in everything.”

But true control isn’t being involved, it’s knowing that things work even when you’re not there.

I call this the Illusion of Control:

When our proximity to decisions tricks us into believing there is structure, when in fact we are the structure.

And if you are the structure, the system is broken.

Because no system should depend on your energy, memory, or heroic intervention.

A Personal Confession

Years ago, during a high-stakes investor meeting, someone asked for a due diligence folder on vendor compliance.

We had nothing.

No logs, no checks, no consistent trail.

Why?

Because “Linda always takes care of it.” And Linda is brilliant, but she’s not a system.

That day, we lost the funding round. Not because of fraud. Because of fuzziness.

It was one of the best failures of my life.

Because from that day on, I never built another company without a formal workflow spine.

What to Do Instead (Without Becoming a Bureaucrat)

I’m not asking you to drown in SOPs or buy a fancy system.

I’m asking you to design for clarity, not memory. Here’s how:

1. Document Decisions. A 2-minute voice memo saved in the right place is better than nothing.
2. Define Roles. Who approves what? Who checks whom? Write it down.
3. Use Tools with Logs. Email is fine. But even a shared Notion page is better than scattered chats.
4. Make Informal Temporary. If you must do something off-process, label it as such and review it weekly.
5. Audit Behavior, Not Just Numbers. Ask: is this person assuming clarity exists, or confirming it?

Informal ≠ Agile

If you think formal workflows slow you down, let me offer this:

A good system is not a cage, it’s a compass.

It tells everyone where True North is, even when the fog sets in.

Even when you're asleep. Or on vacation. Or gone.

And that, my friend, is the real definition of control.