What we fix
If most decisions wait for you, the business runs on you, however many people it employs. We fix it by moving decisions to the people closest to the work, within limits you set in writing, and giving you one weekly review instead of a queue at your desk.
Our plan for it runs six months. It starts with the PPS Backbone Review, and the first four weeks end with the first decisions off your desk, with written limits.
In one line: write down who decides what and up to what amount, review the exceptions once a week, and the business stops queueing at your desk.
Nobody has written down who can decide what, and up to what amount, so decisions drift back to the one person who can decide without asking anyone: you. Handing over the work without handing over the decision makes it worse: every task gets finished twice, once by the team and again by you.
Rahul Kulkarni's column in The Perfect Voice: Why Half-Delegation Doubles the Load (opens in a new tab).
Published research When the person at the top is away, results drop. In nearly 13,000 Danish small and mid-sized firms, a chief executive's hospital stay of ten days or more cut operating return on assets by a full percentage point, and chief executives' hospital stays cost firms more than twice as much as those of the senior managers below them. Bennedsen, Pérez-González and Wolfenzon, Journal of Finance, 2020 (opens in a new tab)
We look at what reaches your desk: two weeks of the decisions and approvals that come to you, logged, with who else could take each one and within which limits.
By week four: the first set of decisions is off your desk, written down with its limits, and the exceptions come to one weekly review instead of your phone.
How the first four weeks workYou take two weeks away, and every decision inside the written limits is taken without you.
Where a plan falls in its range depends on the size and complexity of the business; the exact days and fee are set in week four. From the second month, fees follow our days in your business, so they step down as your team takes over. The lengths and fees assume a sponsor who stays involved and the time the plan names on your side. With less, the plan takes longer and costs more; we will say so early and agree any change with you first. You can stop after the first four weeks, or at the end of any month with 30 days' notice, and you keep everything we built. Two problems at once is one programme with one first step, and the second plan adds about half its usual fee.
How we work, phase by phaseYour Keep list holds what must not change: the culture, speed and flexibility that built the business. We write it with you in week two and check every step against it. If a change would cost something on the list, we redesign the change.
What usually goes on it here:
Runs without the founder
SOPs for the recurring work, one workspace, and a weekly rhythm the operations lead now runs
Relevant if every client question in your business still reaches the founder.
100+ artifacts
8 master SOPs, 13 policies, 24 SOPs, 45+ trackers, role playbooks and hiring packs
Relevant if you are growing a project business and every approval still comes to you.
Our newest articles on this problem.
The Cognitive Load Trap · part 1 of 4
The decisions, exceptions and rules a founder carries in memory make an inbox nobody else can see. How it stalls a business, and how to start emptying it.
Let Go to Grow · part 1
Teams trust a system only when their leader follows it first, most of all under stress. What the Trust Loop is, and five steps to build it.
Across Upwork and direct contracts, including the people on our project teams.
“He is someone I can trust to work through challenges autonomously, adapt to changing requirements, and remain focused on delivering results.”
No. You set the limits in writing, the big calls stay with you, and every exception comes to one weekly review, where you see what was decided below you. What changes is that routine decisions stop waiting for you.
Then the limits start low and rise as they use them well. The plan names a backup for each critical role and writes down the processes that depend on you most, so a capable person can do the work the same way. We build readiness in steps rather than assume it.
About three hours a week: the weekly review and the decisions it raises, and more in the first four weeks while we log what reaches your desk. The senior person who owns the plan gives about a day a week. With less, the plan takes longer.
SOPs are part of it, and on their own they rarely stick. A manual doesn't move a decision; written limits, a weekly rhythm and an owner for each process do, and the SOPs then record how the work is done.
What you're trying to achieve in the next 90 days, and what's breaking in execution. We'll tell you plainly what we'd fix first.
Book a discovery callFree, no obligation, and under an NDA if you prefer.
Or write to consult@ppsconsulting.biz WhatsApp +91 93246 21840 (opens in a new tab)
