The Founder Bottleneck

Every decision waits for one person.

01
Situation
A founder runs a growing services firm. Staff are capable, but approvals, pricing and client escalations all come to her. She works weekends; the team waits.
02
Evidence
- Most quotes wait days for founder approval
- Managers escalate routine exceptions
- No written approval limits
- Work slows sharply when the founder travels
03
The decision
Keep control by approving everything, or define decision rights and accept some decisions will be made differently from how she would make them?
04
Analysis
The bottleneck is not the founder's workload; it is the absence of rules. Without written limits, staff can only escalate. The Ownership and Rules layers are empty across several functions.
05
Framework
Decision rights: decide, recommend, be consulted, be informed, with limits by value and risk.
06
Resolution
She writes an approval matrix, delegates pricing within set margins, and reviews exceptions weekly instead of approving each one.
07
Founder exercise
Apply it to your own business:
- List the last 20 decisions that came to you
- Mark which needed you, and why
- Write a limit that would have let someone else decide

Situation