Here’s the setup. An owner tells me, “I need my team to take more ownership.” A few minutes later, their phone buzzes. Somebody needs a yes on a supply order. Then someone needs a yes on a schedule change. Then someone wants to know if it’s okay to give a customer a small credit.
Nobody in that business is lazy. Everybody is doing exactly what the business has taught them to do: ask first.
What the owner thinks is wrong
“They won’t step up.” I understand why it feels that way. You’re the one getting the texts. It looks like the team is choosing to hand things back.
But I’d want to know what happened the last time someone didn’t ask. If someone bought the wrong thing two years ago and got an earful, everyone remembers. If the rule was never written down, people fill the silence with the safest guess, and the safest guess is always “check with the owner.”
What I’d investigate
I’d spend a week or two just counting. Every approval request that reaches the owner, written down: what it was, who asked, how much money or risk was involved, and how long it sat waiting.
Then I’d sort them into three piles:
- Decisions that genuinely need the owner. Big money, legal risk, a key customer, hiring.
- Decisions the owner always says yes to. These are the giveaway. If the answer is yes 95% of the time, the approval is a speed bump, not a control.
- Decisions nobody is sure about. These are the most useful pile, because they show where the line was never drawn.
What’s probably underneath it
Responsibility without authority. The team has been told they own outcomes: keep the job on schedule, keep the customer happy, keep the office running. But they haven’t been told what they’re allowed to decide to get there.
If someone owns the outcome, be very clear about what decisions they’re actually allowed to make. Otherwise you’ve handed them the blame and kept the steering wheel.
What I’d change
Written decision rights. That sounds formal. It doesn’t have to be. For most small businesses it’s a one-page list that answers, for the common decisions:
- Yours to decide. Up to a limit, for a purpose, with a receipt. Just do it.
- Decide, then tell me. You make the call, I get a heads up after.
- Ask first. Still needs approval.
For spending, it can be as simple as a limit, a purpose, a receipt and an owner. Controls don’t have to feel like bureaucracy. Sometimes they’re just clear rules so nobody has to guess.
Then the owner has to do the hard part: when someone makes a decision inside their lane that the owner would have made differently, don’t take it back. Talk about it, adjust the rule if needed, but don’t reverse it in front of everyone. One reversal teaches the whole team to go back to asking.
What I’d leave alone
The approvals that matter. I’m not trying to remove the owner from every decision. Big money, real risk, things that are hard to undo. Those can stay with the owner. The goal isn’t zero approvals. It’s approvals that are worth the owner’s time.
The tradeoff
You will see decisions made that aren’t exactly how you’d do it. Some will be a little worse. Some will be better, which is its own kind of uncomfortable. That’s the price of not being the bottleneck. In most businesses, a slightly different decision made today beats a perfect decision made after it sat in the owner’s inbox for three days.
Why this happens to good owners
This probably made sense when the business was smaller. When it was you and two people, you saw everything anyway, so approving everything cost almost nothing. The business grew. The habit didn’t change. Now the same habit costs you your whole day, and costs the team the chance to get good at deciding.
So, one thing to try: count the approvals for one week. Write down every time someone asks you for a yes. Then look at the ones you said yes to every time. Those are the first ones to hand over.
If the list is long and you’re not sure where to draw the lines, bring it to a Systems Fit Call.
