Five decisions that shouldn’t have reached you

If every real decision still runs through you, the fix doesn’t start with a reorganization. It starts with a list.

Step 1: Write down last week’s decisions

Write down five decisions you were pulled into last week. Not the big strategic ones. The ordinary ones: a pricing exception, a refund, a schedule change, a vendor problem, a hire someone wanted you to approve.

Ordinary is the point. Strategic decisions belong to you. It’s the ordinary ones that eat your week.

Step 2: Ask three questions about each one

• Who had the information? Usually not you. You had to be briefed.
• Who lives with the result? Usually not you either.
• Why did it reach you? This is the one that matters.

The honest answers to the third question tend to sound like this. Nobody knew they were allowed to decide. The last person who decided got second-guessed. There’s no written limit, so asking felt safer. Or: you’re faster, so you just did it.

Every one of those is a behavior. Some of them are yours.

Step 3: Hand each one to a named person

For each decision, name one person who should own it from now on. Then give them three things in writing:

1. The decision they now own.
2. The limit they can act within, such as a dollar amount, a discount ceiling, or a scope.
3. A start date. This week, not “soon.”

Often you’ll find that several of the five never should have reached you at all. They just did, because nothing said otherwise.

Step 4: Protect the handoff

The fastest way to undo delegation is to overrule the first decision that isn’t the one you would have made. Everyone watches what happens to that first call. If you reverse it, they learn to ask you again.

So if the decision was inside the limit and it wasn’t a disaster, let it stand. Talk about it at the weekly meeting. Not at 11pm.

Why this works

You’re not changing the org chart. You’re changing what you do when the question arrives, and what your people learn from watching you do it. Do this for five decisions this week and five more next week, and the company starts to feel different. Not because anyone gave a speech, but because the behavior changed.