If They Have to Wait for You, You Still Own the Call

I asked a hitter what he was thinking about in the box. Once he started talking, I could hear how much he was trying to figure out before the next pitch.

I told him, “See white ball, hit white ball.”

We could work on mechanics in the cage. In the box, he had a few seconds before somebody threw another pitch. He needed one thing he could use right then. I had to hear what was going through his head before I knew what to give him.

I think about that when a business owner tells me, “I need my people to make more decisions.”

Which decisions? What do they know when they have to make them? What happened the last time somebody made a call you would’ve made differently?

That last question usually gets us somewhere.

The customer is already driving in

Say a trailer fails its final inspection an hour before pickup. The technician knows what failed. The service manager knows what it’ll take to fix it. Sales knows the customer is already on the road.

Your number two calls you. You’re tied up for the next half hour. The customer is twenty minutes away.

This is where “I trust my people” gets specific. Can your number two hold the trailer? Can they call the customer and say it won’t be ready? Can they offer a replacement or a refund? Those are four different decisions. If you’ve only ever said “handle it,” everybody gets to guess where your authority starts and theirs ends.

Here’s what I’d want them to hear before that day comes.

If it fails inspection, hold it. Call the customer and tell them what we know. Give them a time for the next update. Bring a replacement or refund to me.

Now the technician’s finding can reach somebody who can act. The customer gets one clear update. And I can still own the decisions that need to come through me.

Ask what they need to make the call

When I was describing how I coach, I put it this way. “But most of the time I’m the guy saying, What do you need?”

Ask your number two that question the next time they bring you a decision. Then give them a second to answer.

They might need a fact. They might need somebody from another department to pick up the phone. Or they might already know what to do and remember the last time you took the call back from them. If that’s what’s happening, telling them to take more initiative is going to sound a lot like the last conversation.

A study of maritime emergency response in southern Thailand gives this some context. Twelve emergency physicians and nurses described how formal command, frontline judgment, and local responders worked together as weather, evacuation delays, and patient loads changed. The interviews show how much coordination depends on getting information to the people who can act on it while there’s still time. Read the study

Debrief the decision you actually gave them

I’ve told players, “You own your mistakes.” In business, that applies to both people in the handoff.

Ask your number two what they knew at the time, what they decided, and what they’d do on the next one. Then take your turn. Did you give them a clear boundary? Could they get the information they needed? When they made a reasonable call within that boundary, did you back it?

You can disagree with a decision and still coach it without taking the authority back. Tell them what you saw that they didn’t. Ask what they saw that you didn’t. Agree on what would change the call next time.

Pick one decision that keeps coming back to you. Sit down with your number two and finish this sentence together.

You can make this call without me when __________. Bring it to me when __________.

Then, the next time it happens, let them make the call.