Thinking
The founder bottleneck nobody puts on the agenda
When every decision waits for a founder, the company grows only as fast as one calendar.
5 min read
Founders rarely describe themselves as the bottleneck. They describe a team that "keeps coming to me with everything." Both are true, and the second is a result of the first.
How it forms
In the early years, the founder decides everything because there is no one else. That works. Then the company hires managers but never tells them which decisions are now theirs. Escalating stays the safe default.
Tasks aren't decisions
Most founders have delegated plenty of tasks. Far fewer have delegated decisions. A manager who runs purchasing but needs sign-off on every order hasn't been given purchasing. They've been given paperwork.
A simple decision-rights map
List the decisions that come to you in a typical week. For each one, write down:
Who could own it today
What they would need to own it well (information, a budget limit, a rule of thumb)
What would make you want to step back in
Hand over in stages
Don't hand everything over at once. Pick three decisions a month. Agree the limits, then stay out of them. Review how it went at the end of the month, not after each decision.
The goal isn't for the founder to know less. It's for the company to stop waiting for one person's calendar.
If this sounds familiar
The usual starting point is a short engagement that names the problem before anyone spends money on it.
