Before You Decide Your Team Isn't Ready
Below the Waterline · Episode 11 · Blog
Find out what a responsibility needs before treating “not yet” as a verdict on the person.
You've kept a responsibility because you believe someone on your team isn't ready to carry it. You may have good reasons. I'd want to understand what they need to be able to do, and whether they've been given the information, authority, and opportunity to do it.
In this episode you'll learn
- Why a decision coming back to you doesn't establish a lack of capability
- How access, instruction, and authority affect whether a handoff can work
- When development makes sense and when the assignment needs to move
- Why demonstrated readiness may leave separate work for the founder
- How to open a useful conversation about what “not yet” means
Watch or listen
Watch Episode 11 on YouTube · Listen to Episode 11 on Spotify
Episode chapters
- 00:00 What would change your answer?
- 02:28 What the handoff still needs
- 04:04 Can the responsibility function?
- 06:28 When asking is doing the job
- 08:32 When the assignment outgrows the role
- 10:10 A capable leader without authority
- 13:18 The belief that still needs attention
- 15:00 What would change your answer?
- 17:27 Turning “not yet” into a useful conversation
What does it mean when your team isn't ready?
Imagine someone brings you a decision you thought you had handed over. You answer because the work needs to move. Later, when you're asked why you're still involved, this is the example you remember. You tried giving it to them, and it came back.
I would want to hear the question they brought. Were they asking how to think through the choice? Did they need information? Or had they already decided what they wanted to do and needed permission to act?
Those are different situations. If you've kept final approval, a person can do excellent work preparing a decision and still need your answer. That return tells us something about the authority arrangement. It hasn't settled the question of capability.
There are responsibilities where keeping final approval is deliberate and appropriate. In those cases, bringing the decision back is part of the job. The useful distinction is between a return the arrangement requires and a return caused by something the person cannot yet do.
What needs to move when you delegate a responsibility?
When you do the work as the founder, you bring more than your experience. You can get into the systems. You know whom to call. You know which information matters, and you know you can make the decision. Some of those conditions have become so familiar that you no longer notice them.
The person taking over encounters them separately. The responsibility can look fully transferred from your side while they are waiting for access or permission. You may be watching for initiative while they are trying to act responsibly within the authority they have.
Execution Architecture helps us examine that structure. Its three components are the Accountability Chart, which identifies ownership; the Execution Blueprint, which maps how information moves; and the Breakpoint Inspection, which examines the condition of the handoffs. A handoff can be working well. Finding that is useful too.
The questions here are practical. Can the person reach the information and people they need? Do they understand the work? Can they act when the information arrives? A conversation about access to a system gives both of you something specific to address. “Become more of a leader” leaves much more to interpretation.
How do you distinguish a development need from a role mismatch?
Sometimes the person does need experience they don't have. In one business I worked with, an employee handled traditional business IT: PC maintenance and networking infrastructure. He could do that job. When the founder wanted a CRM tool, he assigned the development of a custom system to the same employee.
Both assignments involved technology, but they required fundamentally different backgrounds. The employee hired contractors, and the project consumed money without producing a functional tool. He had been asked to manage work he didn't have the background to evaluate.
We moved the project out of his responsibilities and brought in a contractor with the right experience. That contractor moved us toward an existing solution. The employee remained good at the IT work he had been hired to do.
As a business grows, a capable person's role can collect responsibilities that appear related to their original work. Eventually, the job may require experience that the original role never called for. I would want to look at what you would seek if you were hiring for the responsibility today, and whether all the work assigned to that person belongs in one role.
Development may be a good answer. It needs a way to learn, practice, and receive support. Sometimes the business needs the responsibility to move. Looking at the actual work lets us distinguish those answers without turning a poorly matched assignment into a judgment about the whole person.
Why can a founder hesitate after capability is clear?
In a different company, an incoming leader could carry more responsibility. The founder wanted to step away, but granting permission and authority was difficult. We prepared bounded opportunities around his absences, including supplier decisions for capital expenditures and signing off on vendor payments.
We considered situations the incoming leader might encounter and agreed on how decisions could happen. We also established an arrangement for an unanticipated emergency: the incoming leader could act with a second person agreeing, then notify the founder as soon as possible afterward. The founder's prior approval wasn't required in that arrangement. The second person's agreement was.
Agreeing on authority before the founder's absence meant the incoming leader could act within clear boundaries. Within those opportunities, they demonstrated readiness. The founder's reluctance to grant authority more broadly still remained.
The remaining difficulty involved a personal belief about what needed to happen before he could grant authority. Because that belief wasn't about the incoming leader's capability, further demonstrations of good judgment couldn't resolve it. We needed to work directly with the founder on what granting authority meant to him.
That took substantial individual conversation and clear truth-telling alongside the practical arrangements. The founder then began the formal succession process and took steps he had been resisting.
How can “not yet” become a useful conversation?
I'd like you to think about a responsibility you've kept because someone isn't ready. What would need to be true for you to hand it over? Which of those conditions is already true?
I would want the person in that conversation too. They may know what they are waiting for more clearly than you do. If experience is missing, time alone won't supply it. They need an opportunity to do the work, with support and boundaries appropriate to their experience.
The second question deserves room as well. You may already have seen the judgment you wanted. If your answer remains “not yet,” it may help to ask what you're waiting for now. There may be another practical condition to name. There may also be work below the waterline that you haven't examined.
You don't have to hand over a responsibility to prove you're willing to change. You can find out what the work needs, address what is missing, and recognize what is already there. That gives both people a next step they can describe.
Key quotes
“What would change your answer may already be true.”
“Time passing doesn't automatically create experience.”
“You may be watching for initiative, they may be waiting for access.”
Resources mentioned
The Missing Layer includes the Breakpoint Inspection discussed in this episode:
Related foundation, Episode 2, “Why Founders Stay Bottlenecks Even After They Know the Problem”:
Website: https://dorietter.com
Take the next step
If you're wondering whether someone has what they need to carry a responsibility, the Breakpoint Inspection inside The Missing Layer is a place to begin. It helps you examine the handoff and see what is working and what needs attention.
Explore The Missing Layer:
If the practical conditions are there and you're still having difficulty moving forward, you're welcome to tell me what's happening:
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Below the Waterline brings you the leadership work no one else talks about. New episodes every Wednesday. If this conversation describes something a founder you know is navigating, you're welcome to share it with them.
Related episodes
Episode 1: Why EOS Isn't Working: You Have an Alignment Problem, Not a Systems Problem
Episode 2: Why Founders Stay Bottlenecks Even After They Know the Problem
Episode 9: The Number Your Team Never Shows You
FAQ
Does a decision coming back mean my team isn't ready?
It doesn't establish that by itself. The person may need information, instruction, or permission that the arrangement still requires you to provide. A real experience gap is also possible. The question they brought helps you understand which part needs attention.
Can I delegate a responsibility while keeping final approval?
Yes, if that is the arrangement you intend. The person needs to understand where their authority ends. Bringing a decision back for an approval you have retained is doing the job as assigned.
What if someone really lacks the experience for a responsibility?
Look at what the responsibility requires and whether supported development can close the gap in a way that serves the business. The assignment may need to move to someone with a different background. That doesn't erase the person's capability in their existing work.
Will demonstrating readiness make a founder comfortable delegating authority?
It may address a question about capability. A separate personal belief can still affect the founder's willingness to grant authority. In the transition described here, opportunities to do the work and individual work with the founder were both necessary.
