Give People a Decision They Can Make

Someone brings you a routine decision. You answer it, get back to work, and wonder why people keep coming to you instead of taking ownership.

Before you call that a people problem, check what happens when they decide without you. Do you back a sound choice inside the agreed limits? Or do you replace it with your preference and explain how you would have done it?

People can learn either lesson. One teaches them to judge the work. The other teaches them to find you.

Trust means three things: clear expectations, the authority to decide, and responsibility for results. Make the boundary clear, including when to bring a decision to somebody else. A person cannot own the result if every choice still requires your permission.

Picture a team preparing a small internal workshop. The coordinator owns having the room ready. They can arrange the tables and choose materials already on hand. They cannot commit new spending or change the session's purpose. If the requested setup needs either, they bring that decision to the person who can authorize it. That boundary lets the coordinator move without guessing where permission ends.

Now let them use it. If the tables meet the need, a different arrangement from yours is not a failure. Ask whether the result worked before correcting the method. If something fell short, look at the expectation, the training and the system first. Accountability comes after those.

This week, choose one routine decision that keeps returning to you. Write down who owns it, what they may decide, what requires escalation, and when you will check the result together. Ask the person to explain the boundary back in their own words. The project charter in the BBG Tools library is a simple place to write it down.

Then leave room for a sound decision that does not look exactly like yours.

Marc Bradburry II
Big Bearded Ginger