Do You Want the Outcome, or Do You Want It Done Your Way?

I hear some version of this pretty regularly from business owners:

“I want to step back, but my employees won’t make decisions without me.”

Every decision lands on the owner’s desk. Employees ask for approval on things they should be able to handle themselves. The owner wants people to take more ownership.

That’s when I usually ask:

Do your employees feel confident enough to make a decision without your approval?

An owner can tell employees all day long that they want them to make decisions. But if those decisions are questioned, corrected or redone because they weren’t handled the way the owner would have handled them, employees eventually learn something.

It’s safer to ask.

I see this tension a lot as businesses grow.

The owner’s involvement may be one of the reasons the company became successful in the first place. They solved problems, made decisions and developed a way of doing things that worked.

Then the business grows.

The owner wants to step back, but that means giving up more than the work. It also means giving up some control over how the work gets done.

So I ask another question:

What’s more important to you, the outcome or the way it’s done?

There are times when the way absolutely matters. Safety procedures, financial controls, legal requirements and certain quality standards are non-negotiable.

But not everything is a non-negotiable.

Sometimes it’s simply the way the owner has always done it.

Processes, systems and SOPs matter. They create consistency and give employees a framework for making decisions. But they can’t anticipate every situation an employee will face.

At some point, employees have to use judgment.

And if you want employees to lead and take decisions off your plate, you have to trust their judgment. The challenge is that judgment doesn’t develop without opportunities to use it.

That’s one reason I like to start with a relatively small decision or project.

Define the outcome you want. Set a deadline. Identify the true non-negotiables.

Then give it to the employee.

And leave it alone.

Don’t ask about it. Don’t offer suggestions. Don’t step in when you see the employee approaching it differently. Wait until the agreed-upon deadline.

If the employee produces the desired outcome without sacrificing any of the non-negotiables, start by declaring the work a success.

And resist the “…but.”

“That worked, but here’s how I would have done it” can quickly turn successful delegation into another lesson that there was a right way after all.

If the employee asks for feedback, there’s nothing wrong with sharing your experience. “I never thought of doing it that way. I usually do it differently. It looks like your way worked too.”

Then be quiet.

Let the employee respond.

Maybe their approach was better. Maybe yours was. Maybe there are things both of you can learn from the other.

The owner’s experience still matters. So do processes, systems and SOPs.

But none of them eliminate the need for judgment. If you want employees to take more off your plate, they need opportunities to develop theirs. And you need opportunities to learn to trust it.