Decision Rules

Identify one question your team asks you multiple times this week and write a one-sentence decision rule for it. Share it with the team tomorrow morning.

Teams often ask for permission because the decision limits are not visible.

A decision rule lets the owner know what they can decide, what standard applies, and when the issue must come back to the founder.

Transferring one low-risk decision creates immediate practice in founder freedom.

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The founder needs to understand this lesson because it reveals where the business is still relying on hidden knowledge, repeated founder judgment, or informal habits. The goal is not to add pressure. The goal is to make one part of the business visible enough to improve, teach, transfer, or review.

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Planning Activities: List recurring decisions that currently wait for founder approval.

Choose one low-risk decision to transfer.

Define who can decide, what limits apply, and what standard should be used.

Write a message giving the owner permission within the rule.

Elgin's note: Most founders I work with are surprised by how many decisions they're still making that someone else could easily own. The pattern is almost always the same — it's not that the team doesn't want to decide, it's that they don't know where the line is. They err on the side of checking with you because checking feels safer than guessing wrong. Your job this week isn't to build perfect decision rules for everything. It's to pick one recurring decision, draw a clear boundary, and test it. Clarity beats perfection every time. One rule, one week, then adjust. You'll be amazed at what happens when your team finally knows where they stand.

The founder has documented at least 2 decision rules and successfully delegated at least one recurring decision that previously required their direct approval.

1. When was the last time a team member made a decision without escalating, and what decision rule did you apply (or fail to apply) in that moment?

2. Where in your business does a recurring decision currently lack a clear decision rule, causing ambiguity or delays?

3. What specific criteria would need to be true for you to confidently assign the authority to decide a particular recurring decision to a team member without escalation?

4. After defining a decision rule for one recurring decision, what was the immediate impact on team autonomy and operational efficiency in your business?