How to slowly distribute decision-making in a Small Business

One of the key stages in business transformation is distributing decision-making amongst a greater proportion of the team, and this can be a challenge, particularly for the owner of a growing business who may have become used to being the sole decision-maker, operating under the false belief that it is necessary for them to maintain control.

Control is an illusion. Maintaining too much decision-making in the hands of one individual massively constrains productivity, day-to-day operating rhythms and even growth. It harnesses the owner to day-to-day operations, leaving less time for wider strategic thinking. Furthermore (and more insidiously), it attracts and builds a team who don’t want to be accountable and step up, since people who do tend to get frustrated that they aren’t given autonomy and they leave.

So delegating decision-making is necessary, but scary. Done poorly, it can easily go wrong and entrench the view that only the owner has the ability to do this. So plan and take your time. To facilitate this change, there are some prep work and some stages you can pass through to ease the transition for everyone involved.

THE STAGES

Stage 0: Prepare

• Document business processes, make an owner for keeping these updated and store them in a location where everyone can access them

• Widen access to data sets to more people

• Choose the individual who can be accountable for making the decision. Ensure they have the necessary expertise and authority and that they want to take on this accountability - some people actively dislike making decisions, in which case, they are ill-suited (but note also that many dislike it because they aren’t given what they feel they need to do it well, and no run-in)

• Explain to the individual that they are going to be empowered with and accountable for making these decisions. Without this step, most will be reluctant to step into the role.

• Create ‘deciding teams’ to help the decision maker. These are the supporting cast that can help to generate and evaluate options. Careful with this - you aren’t aiming for a decision by committee, but in an increasingly complex working environment, one person cannot possibly know everything. One person needs to be accountable for making the final decision, but they might need help getting there.

• Define what the limits are for the new decision-maker

Stage 1: side-by-side decision-making

Incumbent decision-maker includes incoming decision-maker in their thinking process, shows their working out.

Build and share knowledge.

Stage 2: small, lower impact decision-making hand off

Incumbent decision-maker hands off decision-making for the smaller and lower impact stuff, to the incoming decision maker.

Build trust.

Stage 3: hand-off all decisions (within their limits) with a regular review or validation

Incumbent decision-maker hands off all decision-making to the incoming decision maker.

Set-up some kind of regular review (weekly, fortnightly or monthly) to validate and confirm.

Build skills.

Stage 4: look at exceptions only

All decision-making left to the incoming decision maker.

Incumbent decision-maker looks at data to indentify and look at exceptions only.