Write Down What Your Team Is Authorised to Decide

Someone knocked on your door, or sent a message, to ask whether they should place the repeat order. Or whether to extend the customer's lead time by a day. Or which supplier to use when the first choice is out of stock. You have answered this question, or one like it, a dozen times. So has the person asking it.

Pain: Your team waits for your approval on things they could decide themselves.

This is founder dependency expressed through routine decisions. The team is not being passive. They are operating rationally in a system that has never defined what they are allowed to decide. When no one has said where the boundaries are, the default is to check. Every check is a small delay. In aggregate, those delays become a drag on the business and a drain on your time.

The authority exists in your head. The team just cannot see it. They are not waiting because they lack judgement. They are waiting because the rule has never been written down.

Fix: Write down what they are authorised to decide and publish it.

This does not need to be a formal policy document. A single list, two columns, the decision and who can make it, is enough to start. Put it somewhere the team can find it without asking you. Every time you catch yourself being asked a question the team should own, add it to the list. Over time, the list becomes the boundary. The team operates inside it without checking in. You stay in control of what actually matters. For practical guidance on how to build this into your business systems, visit SYSTEMology at Simpleris.

What decision did someone bring to you this week that they could have made themselves?

This post is part of the Friday Fix series — one operational fix, every week, for founders and MDs of growing manufacturing and engineering businesses.