People & Leadership
How many decisions in your business wait for one person?
Staff message the owner for approval on small things. Customers ask for the owner by name. Nothing is final until the owner has seen it. It feels like control, but it is also a ceiling: the business can only grow as fast as one person can decide. This session looks at founder dependency from the people side: who can decide what, how to delegate without abandoning, and how to build managers who can act on their own. Written processes and checklists are covered in the Operations & Systems initiative.
Explore this page6 sections
Dependency usually builds up one reasonable decision at a time.
No founder sets out to be the bottleneck. It happens because checking was sensible when the business was small, because an early mistake was costly, or because it is quicker to decide than to explain. Over time the team learns that it is safer to ask than to decide, and the founder learns that it is quicker to answer than to teach.
Reducing dependency is a matter of deciding, deliberately, which decisions move, to whom, and how mistakes will be handled. It is as much about trust and clarity as about skill.
Where dependency sits, and how to reduce it
35 topics across 7 areas. Seven areas to look at from the people side. 6 apply to almost any business; the rest only in a particular case.
Mapping DependencySee it before you fix it.5
- List the questions your team asked you in the last week
- Mark which needed your judgement and which only needed permission
- Note which customers, suppliers or partners deal only with you
- Note which tasks stop when you are unavailable
- Group the list into decisions, relationships and tasks
Decision RightsBe explicit about who decides what.5
A one-page table, shared with the team and reviewed every few months, removes a great deal of daily asking.
- Decisions anyone in the role can make
- Decisions to be made, then reported
- Decisions to be discussed before they are made
- Decisions only the owner makes
- Spending limits, discount limits and approval levels in rupees
Delegating Without AbandoningHand over the work, keep the visibility.5
- State the outcome you want and why it matters
- Agree the deadline and the check-in point
- Say what the person can decide and what they should come back about
- Offer help once, then step back
- Review the result and give feedback, whether it went well or not
Managers Who Can DecideThe team needs somebody between you and everyone else.5
- Which person could take the first level of decisions in each area
- What they would need to know, or be trained in, to do it well
- A rule that managers bring a recommendation, not only a question
- Backing their decisions when others test them
- Reviewing their decisions with them afterwards, not instead of them
Handling MistakesDependency returns when mistakes are punished.5
- Deciding in advance what size of mistake is acceptable
- Asking what the person learned, before saying what you think
- Fixing the cause, such as unclear authority, and not only the error
- Resisting the urge to take the task back after the first slip
- Saying thank you for decisions that were made well without you
Relationships That Run Through YouCustomers and suppliers need to meet the team.5
- Introducing a second person on each important account
- Joining a meeting with them, then attending only part, then not at all
- Telling the customer who to contact, and why that person is able to help
- Following up once to check the handover worked
- Keeping a personal call for moments that deserve it
The One-Week TestIf it appliesA small, planned experiment.5
- Choose a week, or a day to start with, and tell the team in advance
- Agree who covers what, and how to reach you in an emergency
- Note which questions still reached you, and what they were about
- Review with the team afterwards, without blame
- Choose two fixes and make them before the next test
Try this week
- Keep a tally of every time someone asks you for approval or a decision
- Choose the three most frequent kinds and write a rule for each
- Tell the team the rules, and agree the first review date
- Pick one customer relationship to share with a colleague
Hypothetical example, for discussion
- An owner approves every discount, however small
- She agrees a rule: the sales lead can give up to a set percentage, and anything above comes to her
- In the first month the sales lead makes two decisions she would have made differently
- She discusses them afterwards instead of reversing them
- Requests to her drop, and the sales lead starts bringing recommendations
How the session runs
A practitioner or owner who has reduced their own dependence leads the discussion, using the seven areas as a frame. Participants build a one-page decision-rights table for one function of their business and plan a first delegation, including what they will do when it does not go perfectly. Writing procedures and checklists is a different problem, and is covered in the Operations & Systems initiative.
What your students leave with
- A map of which decisions currently wait for the founder, and why
- A simple decision-rights table that shows who decides what
- A step-by-step approach to delegating a task without losing visibility
- An honest view of which people can take on more, and what support they need
- A short test, such as a one-week absence, to see where the business is dependent
- One concrete step to reduce dependence in the next thirty days
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
A team that can decide is worth more than a founder who can answer.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.